My Mission Through Space and Time
by truenarnian
Summary: When my sister disappeared, I thought the world had ended. At least, my world had. But then I met the Doctor, an extraordinary man who seemed to know everything: past, future, you name it, he knew it. Allying myself with him was a no-brainer. As it turns out, I would learn so much from him, and he would learn from me. (Doctor and OC, but not romantic)
1. Chapter 1: A Home Invasion

Chapter 1- A Home Invasion

If you're reading this, either I'm dead or you're some high-up official in the FBI or something, because I can pretty much guarantee you any written account of adventures like the ones I've had are classified up the wazoo. I decided to write down everything that's happened to me since that fateful Tuesday in June, so long ago—well, only about half a year to you guys, stuck in time's normal progression.

I guess I should introduce myself. Erica Stone at your service. The place I call home? Chicago, Illinois, in the good old US of A. Just turned twenty-five two weeks ago. I share an apartment with my sister Naomi. We own a moderately successful bakery together called Just Desserts. Our mom died from some freak health complications after she gave birth to Naomi, and we lost our father to a drunk driver when I was eighteen and Naomi seven. Since then, Omie and I have been sticking it out together in the Windy City. I looked after her like a mother (which she hated half the time)—I helped her with homework, intimidated any boys she brought home, and made sure she got to bed on time every night. I was like a sister, too—we'd talk about our crushes (celebrity or otherwise), argue over what movie to watch, and feed each other's unhealthy obsessions with a TV show or book series (everyone's got at least _one_). I opened the bakery when I was twenty (thanks to a trust our mother had barred our access to until I reached twenty years of age, which happened five years ago), and however meager a living we ground out or memory of our past that suddenly resurfaced couldn't change the fact that we were happy.

Which is why I was devastated when Naomi disappeared.

That Tuesday in June was a sunny one. I remember regretting the fact that I didn't have to go outside to go to work: we bought the apartment below us and turned it into Just Desserts when the Chaundrys, a lovely Indian couple, moved back to Bangladesh. I had left Naomi upstairs- she was the latest riser I've ever known- and gone down to open the shop alone. I wasn't suspicious for the first half hour: Maya and James, two employees, had come in, so the store was running smoothly. I thought maybe Naomi was coming down with something, or she just wanted to stay in bed. I only got slightly worried when I realized that she was running about twenty minutes late for school.

"Can you watch the place for a few minutes?" I asked Maya as she slid a homemade brownie into the microwave. "I want to check on Omie, make sure she's not coming down with something."

"Yeah, no problem," Maya replied, furiously hitting keys on the register. "I'll take care of that brownie. Go up now."

"Thanks, Maya," I said, turning into the back of the store and fishing my house keys from my pocket. James was in the back, taking a new slab of lemon bars out of the oven. "Be right back, James," I called.

James' red head appeared from behind a pie rack. "Got it!" he called as he wheeled the rack out of my path. As I approached the door that opened to the staircase which led up to the apartment, I readied my key, painted with Mickey Mouse's face. Opening the door, I quickly darted up the steps, taking them two at a time as I pulled the loop of my full-body apron over my head, allowing the top part to hang down to my knees. The soft orange color had been Naomi's idea.

"Omie!" I called, unlocking the door to the apartment. "Omie, is everything alright?" I stepped through the door, expecting to find my sister sitting at the table wrapped in her giant white quilt, her straw-blond blond hair sticking out as she slowly ate her Lucky Charms. Instead, the kitchen was empty, devoid of human presence.

"Omie, if you're just doing this to get out of school—" I said, marching towards her bedroom. I intended to say more, but I was brought up short when I caught sight of the inside of her room.

Inside, her blankets were messy, her clothes were hanging unevenly from the hangers in her closet, and her jewelry box had been pushed completely off her dresser, its contents spilling out in a beaded pile below the casement window that gaped open like a mouth. "Naomi?!" I called, close to panicking. "Naomi, what the hell is going on?!" I glanced down at the pile of jewelry and saw the class ring on a chain, encrusted with a single amber stone, amid the necklaces and bracelets. It was our mother's class ring—I had our father's, inlaid with a single emerald, on an identical chain. I had found the rings, made them into necklaces, and given the amber one to Naomi for Christmas because she liked that color better.

My sister never left the house without it.

I flung myself onto the floor and rooted through the pile, pulling the ring's chain free of the tangle. "Oh my God," I whispered. I could hold the chain up—that meant that it was really there, that I wasn't hallucinating. If it was just a figment of my imagination, I could go on pretending that something horrible _hadn't _happened to my sister.

"Naomi!" I yelled, clutching the ring in my fist. First my mom, then my dad, now my sister? I dragged my hands down my face, mentally processing the last week. Everything had been pretty normal—the only thing weird that had happened was the power going on the fritz a few times. _Something was always broken in this damn building_, I thought distantly. Naomi hadn't been lying about where she's been going or who she's been with (trust me, I know how to tell when my baby sister is lying), and the most trouble she's ever caused was accidentally tipping over the water cooler in fifth grade. So why was she kidnapped?

Somehow, I found myself sitting at the dinner table with no memory of how I had gotten there, the ring tucked into the back pocket of my jeans

"Erica, is everything alright?" James' distant voice floated in. "What's going on?"

"She's gone," I called, my voice threatening to crack. James appeared in my doorway and I stood up, my face too weak to create an expression that encompassed the whirlwind of emotions fighting for dominance. "Naomi's gone."

"Oh, God," James said, catching me up in a firm hug. I accepted the support gratefully. "What happened?"

"I don't know—someone must've just kidnapped her!" I stuttered, too shocked to cry.

James was rubbing my back in slow circles. "It's okay," he soothed, his bone-crushing embrace the only thing holding me together. "We'll look all over her room for anything weird—there's bound to be some clues there."

"It's pretty trashed now," I said as James' embrace tightened around me. "I just don't understand. Why would anybody kidnap her? She hasn't done anything wrong!" I squirmed slightly. "James, stop, you're kinda hurting me." James didn't stop—if anything, his arms seemed to become more solid around me. "James, let me go!" As I tried to wriggle free, a realization came to me: he had only seen me sitting at the dinner table. He didn't know I had gone anywhere down the hall.

"James, how did you know Naomi was taken from her bedroom?" I asked, suspicious. James stayed silent and strong, and I began struggling against his grip. "James, let me GO!" I yelled, stomping hard on his foot. James barely flinched.

Suddenly, a new, unfamiliar voice said, "I don't know about you, mate, but I'd let go of her if I were you."

James and I both turned to find an out of place-looking man standing in the doorway, holding up what looked like a robot version of a Harry Potter wand. James partially obscured my view of him, but I could tell he was wearing a long, green velvet coat, bow tie, and some weird kind of Steampunk-looking welding goggles. In some weirdly separate, spectating part of my brain, I noticed that his pants looked a little short on him.

James said in a strangely robotic voice, "The Escape cannot begin without calibrated minds. Erica Stone and Naomi Stone's minds are calibrated. We possess Naomi Stone. We now require Erica Stone."

"What the _hell?!" _I shrieked. "James, what is going on?!"

"That's not James," the newcomer said, lifting his robo-wand. He hit a button on it, and a green, brightly glowing light glowed from its clawed tip. A strange buzzing filled the room (a buzzing that could've been far more annoying than it actually was) and James' body seemed to _flicker, _as if he was a hologram. Suddenly, the hologram-James completely shorted out, and in my friend's place stood a giant, metal rectangular prism, with countless thick, metal tentacles with claws at the end protruding out of every edge and a strange, black, bar-shaped screen where eyes should be with a single red dot, like the laser pointer a sniper would use to aim.

And I was wrapped in all of its arms.

I let out a stream of swear words that would make the cast of Jersey Shore blush, fiercely struggling against the contraption that had masqueraded as my friend. The third party who had revealed the Thing was bustling around behind it, his strange device's buzzing bouncing off the metal. "I'll assume you're Erica Stone?" he asked, and for the first time I noticed an English accent.

"Shut up—I'll deal with you later!" I yelled, finally yanking one arm free. One of the Thing's tentacles shot around toward my upper arm, and I caught it where the tentacle joined the claw, mere inches away from my face. Another tentacle shot toward my wrist, clamping around it and forcing it forward. My hand was gripping the other arm so hard I twisted the robot's wrist, causing the claw to suddenly detach itself and fall to the floor. The red laser dot on the slim black screen suddenly shifted toward the disarmed tentacle, and the next second, the wires dangling from the open arm came alive with electricity and strained for my wrist like snakes. I writhed in the Thing's grip, to no avail: the wires brushed my wrist with the slightest touch. I shrieked with pain as I received the electrical burn, an angry red weal appearing across my skin.

"No!" the bowtie-wearing intruder yelled, activating his Buzz Wand again. As the shrill-yet-soothing buzz joined the sound of a robot struggling with a human, said robot's black-screen-with-a-red-eye suddenly flared red and then went completely black—it had shut off. The electric current died, tentacles stopped trying to squeeze the life out of me, and the whole thing dropped to the floor like dead weight, taking me with it.

I landed painfully against the smooth metal and began trying to wiggle out of its arms. "Hang on, just keep still," the intruder said from on the floor beside me, although I blatantly refused to listen.

"Shut up!" I snapped, frantically writhing around in the heavy tentacles' grip. "I _told _you, I'll deal with you later, Ringo!"

"Oh, I remember Ringo," the tweed-clad man said reminiscently. "Lovely chap. Though when he got drunk, he was quite the joker." I could hear the Buzz Wand come to life, and weight began falling away from me—he was separating the tentacles from the metal slab and trying to free me. As soon as physically possible, I untangled myself from the remaining robot arms and crawled backwards out of the wreckage. "So, Erica—" was as far as my "rescuer" had gotten before I had frantically scurried to a cupboard below the counter, threw open the door, and ripped out the first frying pan I could touch, standing up and advancing toward the man in the bowtie still sitting on the floor.

I cocked the pan back like I would a baseball bat; that spectator gland in my brain fondly recalled the three years I spent catching flies and stealing bases. The man on the floor had thrown up his hands, dropping the Buzz Wand on the floor.

"Who the hell are you?" I demanded, carefully stepping closer to him but still out of his reach.

"John Smith," he replied.

"Yeah, and I'm Albus Dumbledore," I replied sarcastically.

My hostage pursed his lips and sighed through his nose. "I'm called the Doctor," he amended.

"Doctor who?" I interrogated.

A tiny, tiny smile lifted the corners of his mouth for a fraction of a second. "Just 'the Doctor'," he answered.

I didn't have time for this; I had more important things to find out. "Take off the goggles so I can get a good look at your face," I said, gesturing with my chin to the oddball eyepiece.

The "Doctor's" extremely fair eyebrows rose. "Oh, apologies," he said. "I didn't realize I was still wearing them." Slowly, as if not to startle me, he removed the one-way goggles with one large, pale hand, the strap of the eyepiece pressing down his rather voluminous light brown hair. Once the tinted lenses had cleared his face, I could see he had rather dark green eyes, and his chin wasn't as prominent as the goggles made it seem. I was about to ask him to kick the Buzz Wand over to me, but a sudden pain flashed across my wrist.

"Ah!" I yelped instinctively, my grip on the frying pan loosening. The Doctor put his hands down to lift himself from the floor, but I gripped the pan in my uninjured hand, swung it closer to the Doctor, and ordered, "You stay down!" The arm with the burn hung limply at my side, the edge of the pan inches from the Doctor's face.

The Doctor slowly opened his green velvet coat and fished around in the inside pocket, drawing out a black leather ID badge. "I'm a doctor, remember?" he prompted, letting the badge fall open. I snatched it out of his hand, keeping the frying pan in place and ignoring a slight headache (with everything that's happened today, I'm surprised my brain hasn't exploded yet), as he continued, "I'm not here to hurt you. I can fix that burn on your wrist, and then I'll tell you everything you want to know." I mentally debated briefly: his ID checked out, but on the other hand, he found a way into my apartment—but on a hypothetical _third _hand, he had figured out how to shut down the Thing that had attacked me.

I flipped the ID closed and tossed it onto the floor next to him. "Okay," I said, setting the frying pan on the counter. The Doctor stood up from the ground, picking the Buzz Wand up and gently pulling the burn towards him. "I can take care of it myself, you know," I said defensively as the Wand lit up and began buzzing, and he ran it across the red weal.

"But I can completely heal it," he rebutted quietly, switching settings on his wand. I breathed through my nose contemptuously, but then I looked down and gasped aloud. Whatever his contraption was, it was _healing the burn_: the redness was fading and the searing pain was dulling to a slight prickling across my wrist. Soon it was just a thin, pale-pink scar.

I yanked my wrist out of the Doctor's grip. "What the hell was that?" I demanded.

The Doctor sighed. "Americans—always so quick to profanity."

"Answer the question," I ordered, picking the frying pan back up. "And drop the Buzz Wand," I added, gesturing to the slender contraption he had wrapped in his fingers.

The Doctor had been complacent until I mentioned the Wand. "_Excuse _me," he said indignantly, "but _Buzz Wand?" _ By using my nickname for his utensil, I had apparently greatly offended him. "It's called a _sonic screwdriver, _Ms. Stone," he clarified. "Blimey, there've been a lot of names for it, but 'Buzz Wand' is a first."

"Just drop the sonic…whatever," I ordered, and the Doctor set it down on the counter with so much contempt it nearly hit me in the face. "You said you could explain everything. Well then: what is that thing, what happened to James, and _what did it do to my sister?"_

Suddenly, the Thing on the floor rose up a few inches, the screen blazing to life for just a second before it collapsed back onto the floor again. "It's rebooting," the Doctor said, snatching his sonic screwdriver up from the table. "We need to get out of here, _now." _

"Agreed," I said, setting the pan on the counter as the Doctor bent down to retrieve his goggles. "Don't think we're finished here!" I added as the Doctor swiveled me around and pushed me out of my apartment, slamming the door shut behind him. He buzzed his screwdriver on the keyhole, and I could hear the lock sliding into place. "What the—" was as far as I had gotten before he grabbed my hand and pulled me down the staircase behind him, the Thing making loud noise as it rebooted.

_"James?" _ I said incredulously as the Doctor yanked me through the kitchen. There he was—red hair and all. James was going through all the freshly-bakes pies resting on the rack and writing down which flavors we needed more. It was as if whatever happened upstairs hadn't happened at all.

"That's the real James, the Aligrena- the thing upstairs in your apartment- took an imprint of the last person you saw and projected their image- in this case, James- onto you," the Doctor explained at a merciless ninety miles per hour. He stopped in the middle of the kitchen, head snapping back and forth a thousand ways at once. "We need to get everyone out of the building."

I whirled around and pulled the fire alarm on the wall behind me; immediately a shrill whining filled the kitchen. James stared at me doubtfully. "Get out of here!" I ordered.

"What the hell is going on?!" James yelled over the wail of the fire alarm and the sound of the patrons in the other room leaving.

"Get out of here, or I'm firing you!" I yelled impatiently. James threw the Doctor an angry glare and stalked away. "You better give me a good reason for doing that," I said to the Doctor, now absurdly nodding at the red alarm.

"I was thinking about starting a fire, but that works, too…" he trailed off.

"A _fire?" _I exclaimed. "Not in my bakery!"

Suddenly, we heard the distant sound of a door being pounded upon. "The Aligrena's completely rebooted," the Doctor said. He grabbed my hand again (must be a British thing, all this hand-holding) and shouted, "Run!"

He had gotten me halfway through the empty café area of Just Desserts before I tugged hard on his hand and pulled him to an abrupt stop. "Hold it, bucko!" I yelled, pulling his arm hard enough to make him swivel around toward me. I dropped his hand and brought my own up, curled into a fist except my pointer finger. "I'm not going _anywhere _until you explain what the _hell _is in my apartment and what it did to my sister!"

"Ms. Stone—Erica," the Doctor said pleadingly. "I know you're confused, and angry, and a little afraid. Being afraid is good; if you weren't afraid of the thing in your flat, I'd think you mad. I know you don't know me, but I need you to trust me. Just trust me for a few minutes, and I can help you find your sister."

I wanted to say so many things: that I could find Naomi on my own, thank you very much; that he had no business asking for me to trust him; that if he _did _want my blind trust, I should at least know his real name; that I wasn't afraid at all, and I'd be able to handle it. But all that I replied with was a meek, "Are you afraid, too?"

The Doctor nodded solemnly. "Yes, Erica," he said. "I am."

I regarded him thoughtfully. He had come uninvited into my apartment, but he knew how to shut the Thing- didn't he call it an Aligrena, or something?- that had tried to apparently crush me.

"Okay," I said. "Let's go." Suddenly, a bang as loud as a subway crash sounded from near the back of the building. I whipped around toward the sound and said, "The thing- the Ali-whatever- it must have broken my door down."

The Doctor grabbed my arm and pulled me the rest of the way out of the bakery before the Thing could come down and face us.

We ran blindly down the street, dodging passersby left and right. "Where are we going?" I panted as the Doctor's hand left my arm and plunged into his jacket for his beloved screwdriver. He brought it out, its tip blazing green, and pointed it over his shoulder.

"Well, your front doors are locked, so that should hold it long enough," he said as he stowed the screwdriver back in his jacket, grabbing my arm and yanking me down a side street.

"Long enough for what?"

"For us to get in there and take it with us!"


	2. Chapter 2: Double, Double

Chapter 2- Double, Double

Before I write further of my adventures, let me tell you about the Doctor's "logic": it was confusing, it was terrifying, and most of the time it didn't even seem like logic at all. But that's because the Doctor doesn't give you all the pieces to the puzzle—his mind works so fast he forgets we can't read it. So when the Doctor suggested that we go back to mess with the robot alien in my apartment, I was a bit taken aback.

_"What?" _I exclaimed as we turned out of the side street and down a narrow, dead-end alley. At the end of the alley stood a tall, wide, blue box, the translucent windows on the topmost panels of the doors glowing as if lit from within. The box was the most beautiful blue I've ever seen, and I had stopped running so I could properly look at it. The Doctor kept running, pulling a key from his pocket and fitting it into a keyhole on the box I couldn't see from where I stood. After a second, the box's lock gave, and the Doctor lunged inside. I followed after him at a jog, wondering how such a tall, lanky man could disappear so completely inside such a small space, but completely froze once I had walked through the blue box's doors.

I had been expecting maybe a telephone inside, or possibly a weapon of some sort (it _did _say "Police Box", after all), but I certainly hadn't expected it to be _bigger on the inside._

I blinked and pinched my arm several times, but I turned out to be awake. Unsettled, I stumbled backward stiffly out of the impossible box. I ran completely around it: it was only about three feet square. I knocked on one of its walls, and was rewarded with a deep, booming echo, an echo far too loud for simply a hollow wooden box.

The Doctor poked his head out as the last echo faded away. "Oi! Quit knocking on the TARDIS like that!" he said, slightly drawling the first word.

"B-But…_how?" _I asked pleadingly, looking at him with wide, confused, desperate eyes. In response, the Doctor smiled and pulled his head back in, and I numbly followed.

I hadn't been hallucinating; it really _had_ looked like that inside. It was rather humongous: there were at least three yards of space between the doors and the stairs that led to the huge, circular control panel, which was covered in all kinds of knobs, dials, and levers (and possibly a set of salt and pepper shakers). The control panel rested on a floor of thick glass, and I could see another set of stairs leading down under it to a snug space below. A huge, glass pipe ran through the room like a giant, crystal chimney, all the way from below decks, through the controls, and straight into the roof; well, I assumed it ended at the roof, because I couldn't see all the way up. Instead of a proper ceiling, the room's roof just rose to what seemed like infinity. A huge, circular window stood at the right of the doors, showing nothing but white. The whole thing was bathed in a warm, orange light, which gradually changed to a dim white in a corridor that branched off the control room. If I could describe the inside of the blue box in a single word, I would have chosen _fantastical._

I wouldn't be allowed to publish if I had to describe it in three.

"I-It's…it's…" I stuttered, flattening against the magical box's doors. The Doctor, who had been running around his controls like a little kid who didn't know which present to open at Christmas, glanced up at me with a grin to rival said little kid.

"Oh, I love this moment," he said in a fondly reminiscent voice. "Go on, say it," he encouraged.

"Bigger on the inside," I whispered incredulously, staring up at the infinite ceiling. I glanced down at the Doctor. _"How?"_

The Doctor dashed down from the controls, jumping down to the foot of the steps. "Welcome to the TARDIS," he said proudly, throwing his arms wide. "T-A-R-D-I-S. Stands for 'Time And Relative Dimension In Space'."

Carefully, I walked slowly toward the Doctor, stopping at about halfway across the space between the doors and the stairs. "You've got a magic wand that can lock doors and disable robots. You knew how to handle the…the…"

"Aligrena," the Doctor supplied, lowering his arms.

"The Aligrena," I continued. "You've got a giant spaceship squeezed into a blue phone booth." We stared at each other; he expectantly, I curiously. "Is there anything else I should know?"

The Doctor paused thoughtfully. "Well, I've got two hearts, and I'm eleven hundred years old," he supplied, as if it were the most ordinary comment in the world.

After staring at him in shock, I asked suspiciously, "You're not human, are you?"

"No, I'm not," the Doctor replied proudly.

"You _look _human," I remarked.

"I don't look human, you look Time Lord," he corrected.

"Time Lord?" I questioned. "Is that what you are?" He nodded, a proud smile lifting the corners of his mouth. "How many Time Lords are there?"

At this, his smile lost its luster and his eyes broke away from mine. "Just me," he replied in a soft tone. His eyebrows were raised, but only at the center, and his now-faint smile didn't reach his eyes. I knew that expression and the tone that went with it: Naomi and I wore it whenever someone tried to tell a happy story about our parents. It's the face anyone takes when they're bone-crushingly sad, but doing their best to conceal it from anyone else.

I randomly cast about in my brain for another question or anecdote—I knew from experience that anyone in that state of obvious grief needed to be pulled out by something or someone else. "O-Okay, so we've run into your little box of magic. Now what?"

The Doctor seemed grateful for the distraction. Instantly brightening up, he answered, "Now we go back to your lovely little bakery, capture the Aligrena, and hopefully get the chance to nick some of that banana bread, because it looked divine." He turned and lunged back up the stairs and I followed quickly, the serving apron which I had been wearing the whole time sliding a little down my thighs. I untied the full-body apron and slung it over a banister; suddenly, sparks exploded from a pair of knobs fairly close to me. The Doctor looked up from his flipping of switches and admonished, "Hey! The TARDIS is a spaceship, not a coatrack!"

Instantly I had snatched the orange apron from the banister and crumpled it in my hands. "Sorry," I said.

"Don't apologize to me, apologize to her!" the Doctor exclaimed.

"Who?"

He looked at me as if I were a small child who wanted to eat cookies instead of a proper dinner. "The TARDIS," he replied, sounding as put-out as the mother of that child. "I do believe you just offended her."

I looked up at the giant glass pump which enclosed a crystal sculpture that sort of looked like a series of frozen teardrops. "Sorry, TARDIS," I called uneasily, nervously twisting the big ball of cloth in my hands into a smaller clump. "I won't let it happen again." The logical part of my brain was telling me that I was just feeding the Doctor's fantasies, but the rest of my brain (which had abandoned logic a _long _time ago) decided to go with the flow and accept those fantasies. Between the robot that could disguise itself as a person and the space alien with a grin as wide as the Grand Canyon, a living machine seemed like the most believable thing of the day.

The knobs the sparks had erupted from turned back and forth at the same time. The Doctor, watching the TARDIS's response, said, "Ah! That means she's so-so about you," he translated. "She'll be watching. I'd be careful if I were you."

"Right," I said uneasily. The Doctor pulled a final lever and suddenly the TARDIS began shaking. The crystal pump began moving up and down and the whole room filled with an eerie, unearthly _vwoorp_, unsettling and soothing at the same time. I braced myself against the controls as the TARDIS shook violently, the Doctor beaming up at his beloved ship. The shaking and _vwoorp_ing ceased as suddenly as it had begun a few moments later, but I clung to that banister even when the TARDIS was still.

The Doctor leaped around the control panel and to the top of the stairs, swiveling around when he realized I wasn't following him. "Are you coming?" he asked.

"…Yeah," I said, my fingers beginning to cramp from gripping the controls.

"Then quit white-knuckling the console and come on!" he said, reaching over and grabbing one of my wrists. He ripped my hand from the console and pulled me down the stairs and out the door—_into my apartment._

"How did we get back here?" I demanded, dropping his hand.

"The TARDIS can disappear there and reappear here," the Doctor said, pulling the door closed behind me. Suddenly, my apartment door locked itself and multiple people pounded down the stairs. The Thing was lying on the floor, its claws slowly opening and closing.

I glanced at the locked door. "Who's running down my stairs?" I questioned.

The Doctor glanced at his watch, the face of which he wore on the inside of his wrist. "Us," he replied, staring into space for a moment.

As he whipped out the tinted goggles again, I said, "But we're _here; _we can't be running down the stairs right now."

"Did I mention that the TARDIS can also travel in time?" he replied, plunging his arm inside his jacket for his screwdriver.

All I could think was, _Seriously?! _"No, I think you left that little tidbit out," I answered faintly. Suddenly, the Thing flashed blindingly and a loud _zeeow _filled the room, making me flinch from the sound's sharpness and volume. When the spots faded from my eyes, I glanced down and found that in the Thing's place, the Doctor was lying spread-eagled on the floor, fingers twitching and eyes closed.

"Doctor!" I yelled, starting forward to help him. Suddenly, I felt a hand on my arm, and I looked up to see _the Doctor_ holding me back—oh great, now there were _two _of them?! My head whipped between the Doctor on the floor and the Doctor at my side. "Why are there two of you? Did you leave that out, too?"

"It's the Aligrena," the Doctor said, handing me the tinted eyepiece. "It disguises itself as the last person someone's seen. You saw James before because he was the last person you saw; it's disguising itself as me because I'm the last person you laid eyes on since then. It's not me down there—just look through the goggles."

I lifted the goggles to my eyes. As I peered through them, the Doctor lying on the floor became the Aligrena again, a flat metal slab lying on a mass of mechanical limbs. It was like looking through night-vision goggles and X-ray specs at the same time. I lowered and raised the contraption several times, to verify that I wasn't hallucinating (but honestly, I wouldn't have been surprised if I woke up soon after falling down the stairs and hitting my head, and this all turned out to be some horrific coma nightmare). "The goggles are calibrated to see through an Aligrena's disguise. I invented it myself—it's called the False-Image Perception Suppressor. I call it the FIPS for short."

"You're all about the acronyms, aren't you?" I said, handing the FIPS back to the Doctor. "Hang on—I'm the last person you saw. Does that mean you're seeing me on the ground?"

"Yes, I am," the Doctor replied, lifting the FIPS to his eyes. Suddenly, the Aligrena-Doctor on the floor convulsed and bolted to its feet.

"We require a calibrated mind. Erica Stone possesses a calibrated mind. We require Erica Stone," the Aligrena-Doctor chanted, a robotic undertone in its (his?) voice.

"Where is Naomi Stone?" the real Doctor inquired.

"Naomi Stone possesses a calibrated mind. We possess Naomi Stone. We now require Erica Stone."

"Why have you come to Earth?" the Doctor interrogated. "What do you need calibrated minds for?"

"We require calibrated minds for the journey home," the Aligrena-Doctor said tonelessly. "Erica and Naomi Stone possess calibrated minds we will possess Erica and Naomi Stone."

"Oh, no you _won't!" _I exclaimed, running full-tilt at the Aligrena. I caught it at the tweed lapels and slammed it into the front door over and over (that must have been the banging the Doctor and I heard before—or are we hearing it now?). I knew it probably wasn't the best idea to attempt to physically assault a robot, but would _you _have kept your head if you realized you were facing down the thing that took your sister?

The Aligrena-Doctor blankly stared while I assaulted him, but after the fifth time I shoved him against the door, his face suddenly became alive. His skin took on a strange translucence, a red glow beginning to blossom behind his face. His hands suddenly clamped onto my upper arms and he dropped his jaw, blood-red light flooding out of his mouth and eyes. The light seemed to take hold of me, and there was an unsettlingly tangible feeling of it oozing over me like thick tar.

"Don't you dare!" the real Doctor threatened, brandishing his screwdriver at his Aligrena double. The red shroud-light stopped sliding down my body, frozen at the bottom of my ribcage. I tried to fight my way out of my cocoon, but the alien light held me captive. I kicked out at the Aligrena's legs; _okay, good, my legs are free, _I thought. As the real Doctor kept buzzing the screwdriver, I leaned my upper body as far back as I could, still hanging on to the Aligrena. Because of the unbreakable clutch I had on the coat, the alien bent with me, and I summoned every ounce of strength I possessed to heave forward and slam the Aligrena into my door harder than ever before. The force of my assault broke my lock and the door swung open. The Aligrena-Doctor and I fell onto the landing, just a foot from the stairs.

Suddenly, I felt a pair of hands close around my ankles and attempt to pull me off the Aligrena. I kicked and thrashed what I could until the real Doctor said, "Erica! It's me, the real me! Quit it!"

With an irritated sigh, I stopped kicking. The Doctor's grip on my ankles tightened, I loosened my own on the lapels, and he slid me backward out of the red shell, freeing me from its unearthly hold. As soon as I was liberated, I bolted upright next to the Doctor, thanking him as we backed away toward the TARDIS, which stood in my living room.

Apparently, my assault had damaged the Aligrena: it was flickering between an image of the Doctor and its true form, the red light receding into the black, bar-shaped screen.

"Now what?" I asked.

The Doctor glanced down at me. "Forgive me, Erica," he said, green eyes full of sincerity. My eyebrows pulled together for a second in confusion, but before I could ask what he meant, he pulled me in front of him like a shield and taunted, "You need a calibrated mind, do you? Well, there's one right here!"

The Aligrena, now in its true form, raised itself on the limbs attached to its lowest edge and shuffled toward us. The Doctor, guiding me backwards, continued, "You've already got her sister's, why not go for the matched set? After all the work you put into looking for them, they're ready for you to take!"

"Doctor, what the hell are you doing?!" I exclaimed, shaking his hands off my arms. I wanted to turn around to face him head-on, but I didn't take the chance of turning my back on the Aligrena. "I will _not _let you offer me up to that thing like a birthday cake!"

Suddenly, the Aligrena was flying through the air, too many claws to count reaching for my throat. The Doctor yanked me the rest of the way into the TARDIS, drawing the Aligrena inside. The Aligrena latched onto me like it had before and began squeezing me painfully, but this time I put up a better fight—I had dropped to the ground and began rolling around on the floor to fight it off. The Doctor had whipped out his screwdriver again, buzzing it the length of the Aligrena and causing it to suddenly shut down as if it had run out of battery. I shoved the mass off of me and crawled to the stairs, clinging to the banister while the Doctor dragged the lifeless Aligrena up to the console and began plugging wires into it. His work took up about three minutes, and when he was done, he pulled back from the console triumphantly, intending to show it off to me. There the Aligrena was, a great metal-and-wire mass sitting on the console, no red light shining from its eye-screen. I relinquished the banister and climbed up to the console, keeping well out of the Aligrena's reach.

"It won't be hurting anyone for a long while," the Doctor said satisfactorily. "I've disabled all but the most basic functions. When it reboots in, oh," he checked his watch, "about half an hour, we can scan its hard drive for information, and with any luck, find your sister."

I turned to look up at him smiling down at me proudly. Clearly, he expected me to be grateful; instead, I punched him in the arm.

"Ow!" he yelped, rubbing his bicep. "You've got quite an arm on you! What was that for?"

"Using me as baitand not even _thinking_ to tell me about it!" I exclaimed. "You could've at least told me about your plan!"

"It only _became _a plan thirty seconds after you nearly destroyed the Aligrena!" the Doctor retorted. "If I told you about it in front of the Aligrena, it wouldn't have been such a good plan anymore."

"You call _that _a good plan?"

"Okay, maybe not exactly _good…"_

Suddenly, the Aligrena's eye-screen flared red, and the Doctor hurriedly flipped some switches on the console, re-stabilizing it. As the red faded away, the Doctor said, "Well, it's obvious I owe you some answers. Will you let me take you to get something to eat so I can explain?"

I wanted to scream at him that I never wanted to see him again, to tell him to leave me alone and steer clear of Chicago for the rest of his life; but if I never saw _him _again, I wouldn't see Naomi, either.

I took a calming breath and nodded. "Okay. Let's go."

The Doctor smiled. "Thank you, Erica," he said, clapping me on the shoulder. He ran out of the TARDIS, calling, "Just give me a minute, I'll be right back!"

For a few seconds, I stood, uneasily conscious of the distance (or lack thereof) between the Aligrena and I. Then I caught sight of my orange apron, lying on the ground. I picked it up off the TARDIS floor—I must have dropped it on my first jaunt in the time-and-space machine, and it had been lying here, forgotten, ever since. Crumpling the orange fabric in my hand, I jogged to the TARDIS's doorway and tossed the apron into my living room: I won't need it for a while.

The Doctor was just coming back up the stairs as my apron landed on my couch. He was toting one of my bakery's takeout boxes under his arm and had a chunk of banana bread in his other hand. "Blimey, this is _amazing!" _he praised. "I thought the Anduvians knew how to bake bananas, but _this _is exquisite!"

"Thanks," I said uneasily. Sure, people had told me my banana bread was good, but no one had acted like it was their first bite of food after months of starvation.

The Doctor looked up at me, and there was pure bliss in his eyes. Just exactly how much did he love bananas? "Right! Let's get you something to eat! I daresay you've had enough bakery food to last you a lifetime—care for a burger?"

The Doctor pushed past me into the TARDIS and set the box of banana bread on one of the chairs set against the banister, rapidly swiveling around to the console as soon as he had done so. He danced around it, mashing buttons and throwing levers. The TARDIS began shaking and _vwoorp_ing again, and the Doctor and I clung to the console as she took off. For the first time since I discovered my sister was missing, I found myself smiling. Now that I could relax a bit, the aspect of traveling through time and space seemed more inviting than before.

Maybe there was more to this mysterious Doctor than the events of this morning.


	3. Chapter 3: Faith, Trust, and Hot Dogs

Chapter 3- Faith, Trust, and Hot Dogs

We ended up going to Millennium Park that day, well away from my apartment. Once we found a nice street so the TARDIS could sit without being bothered (and you thought parking a_ car _was bad?), we stopped at a hot dog cart and purchased a couple. We made our way to through the Park and ate the dogs in silence (they were _really _good hot dogs). We got to Lurie Garden as we finished the hot dogs and started the Q&A session.

"So, the Aligrena," I began. "What do you know?"

The Doctor said, "I picked up the Aligrena crash signal from about three weeks ago. The TARDIS couldn't follow its specific time track, and we just landed about an hour ago. The Aligrena have such a strong encryption key I couldn't crack it until they made a move on your sister. The attack sent out a signal that the TARDIS tracked to your flat."

"So they took Naomi just because she was there?" I snarled, my fingernails digging into my palms. "It might've been a fluke."

The Doctor led me off the main path and down a vacant side trail which twisted and turned through a cluster of flower beds. "Erica," he said, slurring the letter A at the end of my name. "As far as I know, there's a specific reason they went after your sister. Remember what the Aligrena said? It said that you and your sister had a calibrated mind. I don't know what they need a calibrated mind for, or even how they calibrate a mind, but I _will_ find her."

I looked up at him, suddenly angry. "Who _are _you?" I demanded. "Why were you in my apartment? Why did you only get there in time to save me and not Naomi?!"

"Erica, if I had the chance to save your sister, I would have," the Doctor pleaded, clasping my small hands in his broad ones consolingly. "I could only pick up the Aligrena's signal after they'd taken her. I'd go back and save her now in a heartbeat, but crossing our own timeline would be catastrophic. If I rescued her then, our timelines would rewrite themselves. Time _can _be rewritten, but not once you know what's going to happen. It's impossible." I could see the sincerity in his eyes—he truly meant his words. He would have saved my sister if he could've.

But that didn't change the fact that he didn't.

"Get away from me," I snarled, shoving him away. I marched down the path, back onto the main trail, and away from the Doctor, who still followed me. He got cut off by a trio of elderly men interrupting each other with war stories, and I used the temporary deflect to run down a side road. I had started out as jogging, but then I began running, and soon I had sunk into a full-out sprint. I _had _to get away—from the Doctor, from the Aligrena, from the fact that my sister was gone and it was all my fault.

The thought of Naomi made all the energy drain out of me after about twenty yards. I fell out of my sprint and into a desperate walk, collapsing onto the first park bench I saw. Soon enough, I had caught my breath, and that's when I started crying.

I thought of Naomi, probably hooked up to Martian technology with all sorts of wires and needles—_oh God, she _hates _needles_—and of the Aligrena, lying in the TARDIS just waiting to destroy the time-and-space machine and any chances I had of finding my sister. I buried my face in my hands and cried into them, not even caring enough to wipe them off when they were coated in tears. Thankfully, the passersby who were just trying to enjoy the nice June day ignored me, and I tried to keep my sobs as silent as possible in return. Just the possibility that somewhere those fiends could be harming her terrified me—my entire life had been dedicated to caring for her, protecting her.

Hell of a job I had done.

It was only a few minutes until I peered through my fingers and found two brown leather boots in my line of vision, the high tops left exposed. I raised my head and found the Doctor standing over me, his face apologetic.

"Is it you, the real you?" I asked, wiping my hands on my jeans. "Not some robot replica?"

"It's really me," he replied.

"How do I know?"

He smiled consolingly. "Banana bread."

I sighed, relieved. "I'm sorry," I said pleadingly. "I get that you couldn't get to my sister in time. I shouldn't have shouted at you like that."

"May I sit?" he asked. When I gestured to him that sitting was fine, he settled down next to me, folding his hands between his knees. "I understand, Erica," he said in a low voice. "Believe me, I do. You had every right to react like that."

"What do I do?" I moaned. "She's probably all the way across the universe by now, having God-knows-what done to her. I thought she was just taking forever to wake up!" I dragged my hand down my face. "Some sister I am."

"Today…" the Doctor began, with an air of not knowing the next words coming out of his mouth, "…today's events were beyond your control. You can't blame yourself for the Aligrena. The fault lies not with you for not being able to save Naomi, but with the Aligrena for attacking her in the first place."

"What do they want?" I asked, wiping my face and hands.

"I don't know, Erica, but I _will _find out," the Doctor said, standing up. I rose with him, he threw his arm across my shoulders comfortingly, and we silently walked away from the park bench, away from Lurie Garden, and out of Millennium Park. As we trekked back toward the TARDIS in silence, a new thought blossomed in my head, one that, when I presented it to the Doctor as a fully-fledged plan, would either be taken very seriously by the alien or would just be laughed off as ridiculous.

As we turned back down the alley and the Doctor unlocked the TARDIS, I lingered a few feet back. The Doctor slipped into his blue box and turned around to face me, a half-consoling smile on his face.

"Thank you for your help, Erica," he said, slurring the end of my name again. I liked when he did that. "I will bring back your sister. Just have some faith."

That's when I knew I had to ask. "Will you let me come with you?"

I was sure the Doctor would laugh my suggestion away, shaking his head amusedly as he closed the TARDIS door and made it fade away with that ethereal _vwoorp. _But instead, he peered at me, his smile turning from apologetic to…proud, maybe? "Could be dangerous," he warned.

"I'm sure it always is," I replied.

"Are you sure you want to come with me?" he asked, raising his eyebrows.

"I have to find my sister," I stated. "That's my job, and mine alone. I won't let you do it in my place—but I'd greatly appreciate your help."

The Doctor smiled broadly and retreated slightly inside the TARDIS, holding the door open for me. "Erica Stone, welcome aboard."

I returned his smile and said, "Thank you, Doctor." I walked inside, the Doctor letting the door snap shut as soon as I had entered. Childlike, he dashed up the stairs and to the console, flipping some switches next to the comatose Aligrena. As I climbed up the stairs behind him, symbols began flashing in red on the Aligrena's screen.

"Sarsgaroth," I read off. "What's that?"

"The planet it last visited!" the Doctor exclaimed, whirling around the console. "And if we go there, then answers might be waiting for us. Hold on, Erica, 'cause we're about to go for a bumpy ride!"

Suddenly, the TARDIS began _vwoorp_ing, and I clung to the banister as the central crystal pump began moving up and down. The Doctor had the most beautiful look of wonder in his eyes as he gazed at the TARDIS, a hint of a smile creeping up his face.

"To infinity and beyond," I whispered to myself. Naomi had always loved the Toy Story movies.

I vowed to re-watch them all with her as soon as we got her back.


	4. Chapter 4: Getting to the Greek

_Hey, guys! Thanks for reading. Just gonna say that I'll be mostly updating on Tuesdays or Wednesdays. Back to your scheduled fanfiction:_

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Chapter 4- Getting to the Greek

I'll always remember the first place the Doctor and I went, because it wasn't where he had intended. He had explained about the TARDIS's screwy navigation system later on, when I had gotten a bit more used to space-and-time travel and I could take stock of new information easier; but those first few days, I had no idea what was going on.

The TARDIS shook and quaked as we traveled across space and time. "Is it supposed to be making that sound?!" I yelled over the _vwoorp_ing. It was an eerily beautiful sound, but it didn't seem like any machine should be making it. Although, what do I know about space ship mechanics?

"No, but I like that sound!" the Doctor replied. I wondered why I ever even asked to travel with him in the first place. I held on to the console tightly as the TARDIS gave an almighty lurch, sending the Doctor and me to the floor. As we hit the glass deck, the _vwoorp_ing suddenly stopped and the TARDIS came to a standstill.

"Does that happen every time?" I asked, rubbing the back of my head where it struck the floor.

"No…" the Doctor said unconvincingly. "Well, most." He climbed to his feet and I did the same, the Doctor running around to a computer monitor on the console.

"Where are we?" I asked, unable to decipher the circular writing on the screen.

"Er…" the Doctor trailed off. "Well, I dunno."

_What?_ "Are the Aligrena here?"

"…No."

"How can you tell? The computer screen's just showing us circles!" I said, hoping the Doctor hadn't led us wrong. Maybe he was just misreading his own machine?

"Oi!" he exclaimed. "That's my language, if you must know."

"If your written language is circles, what the hell do you speak?" I asked.

"Normal words!" he defended. "I'm speaking it right now!"

I looked at him sideways. "You're speaking English, genius."

"No, I'm not. I'm speaking Gallifreyan, and the TARDIS is translating it for you," he explained, swinging the monitor around the crystal pump to a typewriter installed in the console. As I followed, he continued, "It gets in your head and translates anything. In fact, I'm hearing Gallifreyan come out of your mouth right now. Let's see if I can pull up a map…"

"Gallifreyan," I repeated softly. "So that's your language." It was unexpectedly…soft. You'd think an alien planet's language would be called something like Zebron or Machtengo, but "Gallifreyan" sounded like a wind blowing over a rolling wheat field. And yeah, yeah, I know it sounds poetic, but if you heard the Doctor talk about his native tongue, you'd be as inspired as I. "Where are you from?"

"Gallifrey."

I could've guessed that.

"It sounds like a lovely place," I said sincerely as he pounded away at the typewriter keys.

"It was," he replied, in a voice so low I could hardly catch it. "Aha! Oh, we're not on Sarsgaroth at all."

"I thought we were following the Aligrena's coordinates."

"Well, sometimes things don't go according to plan."

I rolled my eyes. "So where are we?"

"Athens, 529 BC." The Doctor took my hand and pulled me to the TARDIS doors, throwing them open to me. Outside was a weathered stone road, occupied by men in chitons and women in peplos, some of the former leading mules pulling carts of goods behind them. Great stone buildings and temples rose up around us, throwing their shadows over the alleyway the TARDIS had landed in. Barefoot children wearing dirty tunics ran past the Doctor and I, playing what looked like Tag.

I was torn in two: half of me wanted to march straight back into the TARDIS and track down Naomi, but the other half wanted to explore a bit. I always loved learning about the Greek and Roman gods and goddesses in elementary school, and Greek culture in general fascinated me. _Come on, Erica, _I mentally chided myself, _you're not on a Universal Tour with the Doctor. He's just going to help find Naomi._

"Let's try again," I said, trying to keep the resignation out of my voice. It would've been fun to see ancient Greece, but I'm not with the Doctor for fun.

Suddenly, a scream rang through the air.

"What the hell was _that?"_ I asked, slightly alarmed.

"Rather normal, I'm afraid to say," the Doctor replied, before we both broke into a run.

Luckily, the source of the scream was just around the corner and down the road. It was a woman standing amidst a crowd of Greeks, staring fearfully into what looked like an ancient furniture store. One slender hand was covering her mouth while the other clutched at her side, traces of blood showing through the white fabric of her tunic.

"Make way! Make way!" the Doctor yelled as we forced our way through the concerned crowd. He fished around in his pocket and pulled out his leather wallet, flashing it around to the onlookers. "I'm a healer! Make way!"

We were finally through the crowd to the apparent victim, still slightly hysterical. "There's nothing to see here!" I yelled, getting the outer fringes of the group to disperse. I wrapped one arm around the woman and took the hand covering her mouth, guiding her into a more private corner of the street. We saw an old, cracked stone bench and I sat the woman down, mindful of her wound. When I moved away, the Doctor proceeded to go to work examining her, carefully pushing away the fabric of her tunic to look at her injury.

"Hello, ma'am," the Doctor said, sitting on the bench. "I'm Doctor…er, Satorno. Yeah, Doctor Satorno. Let's go with that. Are you terribly hurt?"

"No, not at all," the woman replied, seeming to regain her head. "The injury wasn't why I screamed."

"What's your name, ma'am?" I asked gently.

"Hekate," she answered. "Hekate Matthias."

"Can you tell us what happened to you?" I asked, hoping to distract her from the Doctor, who was now taking out his sonic screwdriver. I hadn't been traveling with the Doctor long, but I knew it wouldn't be good if someone from ancient Greece saw technology that wouldn't be invented even in my _own_ time.

"Well, I was walking along the road," Hekate began, "and I suddenly felt a sharp pain in my side. It didn't hurt very much at all, actually. But when I turned around to see what had caused it, I…I s-saw…"

"Take your time," I said, hoping I didn't sound like I was rushing her. Truth was, I wanted to know what she saw. Maybe it would lead to Naomi after all.

"It was a Gorgon!" Hekate cried.

"…A Gorgon," I repeated. "As in, Medusa?"

"Yes, she was here! I am fortunate she didn't look me in the eyes. She simply scratched me and then ran away! I didn't even see her face."

Hekate and the Doctor sat on the bench while I leaned against the opposite wall, all three of us sharing identical expressions of disbelief. Were Gorgons real? If they were, why were they coming into Greece and scratching bystanders without looking at them, like a Gorgon would?

"Looks like an ordinary stab wound," the Doctor said, scanning the injury with the screwdriver. "Not serious at all, very shallow. You'll be fine." He reached into the pocket of his coat (all the way up to his elbow—maybe the TARDIS wasn't the only thing bigger on the inside), pulled out a roll of gauze and some medical tape, and began applying the gauze to Hekate's injury, handing me the tape. I took the thin roll and tore off four short pieces with my teeth, which the Doctor used to secure the bandage. When he was done, the Doctor smiled at her reassuringly; but there was something one-dimensional in that smile, something that made it not quite as reassuring as it could be.

"Kate!" an unfamiliar male voice called from the end of the alley. There stood a tall Greek man, his limbs twiggy but his toga making him look broader. He hurried toward Hekate and the Doctor moved off the stone bench, giving the new party room. Hekate stood to greet him, reassuring him that she was fine.

The newcomer turned to the Doctor and I. "Please forgive me, sir and madam. I am Herod Matthias, and this is my wife."

"Herod, I'm alright," Hekate soothed. "This is Dr. Satorno and…my dear, I don't believe I learned your name."

"Hermia," I said without missing a beat. She'd always been my favorite character in A Midsummer Night's Dream, and her name sounded Greek enough. "I'm his…helper. With herbs, and such."

Both Matthiases seemed confused, a slightly-judgmental look shared between them. "Well, thank you both," said Herod, grateful nonetheless as he slipped an arm around Hekate's waist. "May the Fates allow me to return the favor." With that, he began guiding his wife out of the alleyway, the Doctor smiling pleasantly after them. It was only when they had turned the corner and left our line of sight he rounded on me.

"You're my 'herb helper'?" he said, with the sort of anger a child had when you denied them a cookie. "What even is an herb helper?"

"I had to think of something!" I said defensively. "Go easy, it's my first time in ancient Greece."

We began walking out of the alley as the Doctor added, "And what was with 'Hermia'? Do you make a habit out of lying about yourself?"

"If you get a secret identity, why can't I?"

He sighed. "Fine. Just…next time, provide only enough information about yourself to answer the question. The less they know about us, the better."

We came to the edge of the alley and scanned the road before us, deciding which way to go. "What do you want to do now?" the Doctor asked.

"We're not finished," I said. "You're hiding something about Hekate's injury. What is it?"

"Some abnormalities," the Doctor said offhandedly, leading me across the street and ducking behind a pillar. Herod and Hekate were just down the road, apparently hurrying home. "She'll be fine."

"Then why are we following her?" I made my tone as condescendingly authoritative as possible.

"We're not following. We're checking if the coast is clear."

Before I had time to form a response, the Doctor had taken my hand and pulled me down the street, diving into the furniture store Hekate had been standing in front of.

The Doctor pulled out his screwdriver and began scanning clay pots and stone sculptures while I walked carefully by his side, making sure I didn't break anything. It was rather beautiful home furnishings; if we weren't looking for a monster, I would've stopped to admire it. "So what are we looking for?"

The Doctor, intent upon his task, didn't answer until he checked the readings on his screwdriver. "Not quite sure," he said, looking around like a curious puppy. "But whatever it is, don't let it look you in the eyes."

"You're actually _listening_ to that woman?" I reprimanded under my breath. "She couldn't have been right, Gorgons are myths!"

"Well, what do you think happened?" he replied sarcastically.

"Why should I know? That's your job!"

"Give it a go!" His tone was more exasperation than encouragement.

I shrugged, casting about in my mind for a satisfactory explanation. "The blade was drugged?"

"That's…logical," the Doctor praised, hardly sounding sincere.

I rolled my eyes. "Well, what did you have in mind?"

"Not…quite…sure," the Doctor replied, eyeing an official-looking man who had just come out of the back room.

The newcomer spotted us, began walking to meet us, and called, "I'm the store owner. Can I help you?"

The Doctor pulled out his leather wallet again, showing it to the owner. "Don't mind us, just an inspection," the Doctor explained. The owner took the wallet from the Doctor and peered at it suspiciously.

Apparently, everything checked out. He handed the wallet back to the Doctor and said, "Forgive me, sir; I was not aware of any inspection."

"That's the way we do things," the Doctor explained. "We like to keep you on your toes. Now, may we begin?"

"Certainly," the owner said, a good deal more genial toward us. "Can you do it without me? I have some complicated orders to sort through with a client."

The Doctor nodded. "We'll come to you if we have any questions." The owner nodded and left his store, leaving us alone. The Doctor moved to put the wallet back into his jacket pocket, but I snatched it out of his hand before he moved it. I opened it and…

_"How?"_

"Give the psychic paper back!"

"Not until you explain it!" I lifted the psychic paper to eye level between us, never breaking eye contact with him. "You flashed this to everyone before, and people thought you were a doctor. Well, a medical doctor. Then you showed it to the store owner, and he thinks you're the general manager."

"It's called psychic paper," the Doctor explained. He made a grab for it, but I kept it out of his reach (quite an accomplishment, considering his long limbs). Put out, he continued, "It can become whatever credentials I need it to be—a party invitation, a pilot's license, a computer expert…anything." In a lower voice, he added, "And actually, he thinks I'm the CEO."

I paused, thinking back. "You showed this to me back in Chicago, too, didn't you?"

The Doctor bit his lip. "Yes, I did, Erica," he admitted. "I had to get you to trust me to heal that burn on your wrist."

I flung the psychic paper to the Doctor's feet. "How am I supposed to trust you now?"

The Doctor looked heartbroken. "Erica—"

"No—just…I'll just go look on this side of the store," I said. "You take that side." I began walking away from the Doctor; I could hear him calling after me, but I wouldn't turn around. I wouldn't.

Once I found a dark little corner, I used it to pace back and forth, fuming. How _dare_ the Doctor lie to me! How could he? He could've made my arm fall off, all because I let him treat me! And even when he _did _allow me on board, he didn't tell me that he'd lied. He didn't feel the need to apologize at all. The _nerve _of that man.

I ran my hand over the pink scar on my arm, a token of the Aligrena's attack, as my windstorm of thoughts started to die down. Maybe there was something in this dark little corner that calmed me, because I was starting to see sense. I mean, the Doctor only lied to me so I would trust him. After all, he _did _fix the burn. And we had only just met: the Doctor lied to the store owner and Hekate like he had lied to me, and that was only because he wanted to help.

_I have got to stop running away from him,_ I thought as I turned around and began walking back, preparing my apology. Predictably, I tripped on the leg of a stone bench and flung my arm out to regain my balance, expecting to hit a statue. Instead, my hand sunk into scaly, cracked flesh, a growl building up inside a phantom throat. I looked up (though I _really _didn't want to) and found myself staring into a snarling jaw, the throat lined with teeth.

I couldn't remember screaming.

I knew I had to have screamed, or else the Doctor wouldn't have found me so quickly. He was there in an instant, screwdriver ablaze. He grabbed my arm and yanked me away from the stony monster, holding the sonic up like a sword.

"Don't look into the eyes, Erica," he ordered.

I looked at him, shocked. "There really _is _a Medusa?!"

"Don't be silly," the Doctor said.

"Then why can't I look?"

"Because all stories are based in fact." Suddenly, the Doctor began running, pulling me along. I eventually wrenched my arm free from his grasp and we plunged deeper into the furniture showroom, hiding among marble sculptures.

The Doctor began examining the readings from his screwdriver. "What does it say?" I asked breathlessly.

"Shhh!" The Doctor's hand suddenly covered my mouth, the screwdriver pressing firmly into my lips. He held me against him, my back to his chest, as we heard the sound of rough stone scraping over smooth stone: the creature was passing right in front of us.

It seemed like that monster was sliding past us for eternity. The Doctor and I listened with bated breath, waiting for it to discover our hiding place. Eventually, the scraping quieted as the creature slunk away from us. The Doctor didn't release me until it was completely quiet. His hand lowered from my mouth, but I wouldn't dare say anything. What if it came back?

"Where's it gone?" the Doctor breathed. He sounded just as wide-eyed as I did. Suddenly he completely released me and peered around the pillars that had shielded us. "Where's it gone?"

Carefully, I walked around the pillars and glanced at the floor; there was the strangest trail of rock particles there, smaller than gravel but bigger than dust. The trail led past our hiding place and out the front door.

"What on Earth is that?" I whispered, pointing at the trail. The Doctor gained this far-off look in his eyes, like he was looking back.

"Hekate," he breathed. "It's gone back for Hekate!"

I wasn't aware of making the conscious decision to begin running, but suddenly I was bolting out of the shop, towing the Doctor behind me like a little girl trying to walk a lazy dog. We made it out of the store and began running down the road, where the rocky tracks became significantly harder to follow. We pounded down the road, but our progress was halted by the dense throngs of people grouped around different stalls in the road. Suddenly, we heard a scream.

_"Kate!"_

Not Hekate's scream this time. Herod's.

The Doctor and I froze for a moment: what had happened? What did Medusa do? Could the Doctor and I have done something to stop it? We looked at each other, wide-eyed, and began struggling more fiercely through the crowd, which had hesitated with Herod's wail. They parted easily for us and we bolted down the road, some people following at a less-intense pace. The Doctor and I found Herod kneeling on the ground, cradling—

"Oh, my God," I said, my hand clapping over my mouth. There on the ground was Hekate, but not how the Doctor and I had left her. I shudder, even as I'm writing this record, of the memory of Hekate, for the few moments I had known her.

She was completely _broken in two._

But literally broken: she had somehow become a statue. Her lower body had completely broken off, the smooth marble that used to be flesh lying a yard away from the couple. Hekate had broken at the midriff, and she was slowly becoming marble; only her head and right arm were still flesh.

"Doctor Satorno!" Herod cried, spotting us. "Doctor, please, you must know something! What is this?"

"Doctor," Hekate said pleadingly, "What's happening to me?"

The Doctor fell to his knees and began running the sonic screwdriver along the length of Hekate's body—well, the body that hadn't broken away. "No, no, no," he kept chanting, his voice rising in volume.

"You must be able to help, Doctor!" Hekate begged. "Please, you must! Look at me, for Zeus's sake!" She lifted her arm, and we watched as it impossibly paled and hardened into smooth stone, until Hekate couldn't move it anymore.

"Doctor, what's happening to her?" I asked, my voice hysterical.

"The protein in her body is being converted!" the Doctor explained. "Well, more accurately, it's being replaced!"

"With _what?"_ I asked as Hekate's forehead began to smooth over.

"Help me, Doctor!" Those were Hekate's last words before her face hardened and she became a broken marble statue.


	5. Chapter 5: Why

Chapter 5- Why

The night we spent grieving with Herod was horrible. We all reacted differently: Herod tried to maintain a brave face, but sometimes he'd catch my eye or the Doctor's, and then he'd leave the room. The Doctor paced back and forth, sometimes checking the screwdriver and other times talking quietly to himself, not seeming to be any closer to a solution as the night wore on. I simply sat in a soft, luxurious chair, overflowing with the color red, and stared into space, drinking wine the same color as my cushions. No one spoke to me. No one looked at me. Just how I wanted it.

Hekate's death had reawaked memories I'd locked away so I'd never have to feel them again. I thought of my mother, and how it had felt to lose her. I thought of my dad, and the feeling of unreality I had been struck by when the police told me my father had been killed. Those days…those days were the worst I had ever been through. That feeling that you're completely unprotected, that anything can hurt you…no one should ever experience it.

Yet everyone must.

Herod had ordered Hekate's marble remains to be brought back to his house; he asked the Doctor and I over, to try and solve the mystery of her death. We'd asked him all the usual questions, but nothing other than Hekate getting bumped by some stranger seemed to stand out. In fact, none of us were making much progress. The Doctor paced as Herod cried as I sat and stared. The only one who might've been close was the Doctor, but his thoughts seemed too wild to come up with a cohesive plan. Herod was too sad to think of anything, and I was busy flashing back to the worst moments of my life.

I thanked God (or Zeus, or Hades, or whoever was listening) that Herod and Hekate hadn't had any children. It would've made everything worse. A crying child is a travesty the universe should never have produced. I remembered Naomi, who had started sobbing when I told her about Dad; her tears made everything worse. None of us were in any fit state to break news to a son or daughter: Herod would break down again, the Doctor seemed to be in significant denial, and I don't think I'd be able to speak.

Hell of a first trip in the TARDIS.

"There's got to be something I'm missing!" the Doctor exclaimed. "There's something that refuses to fit in."

"Then calm down, and start from the beginning." It was the first time I had spoken in hours. My voice didn't even sound like it was mine. "Tell me everything—_slowly."_ I could see the Doctor's hesitation: he knew what watching Hekate die like that had done to me, and he didn't want to make me any worse. "Don't hold anything back. _Anything."_

The Doctor suppressed a sigh and sat on the broad, stone windowsill. "The first time we saw Hekate, she had been stabbed or pricked or…whatever, by someone she believes to be Medusa."

I sat up and placed the wineglass on the windowsill. "And while you were treating the injury, you noticed abnormalities, which were…?" The Doctor hesitated. _"Doctor—"_

"There were traces of an extraterrestrial life form in the wound," the Doctor explained, looking anywhere but at me. "They were too faint to trace to their origin."

"Could you identify the life form?"

He sighed. "No."

I chewed the inside of my cheek. "Okay: so we know she was pricked by something not from Earth. And then…and then we investigated the furniture showroom. The culprit was probably hiding in there: that's why we missed it, it must look exactly like a statue."

"And then we followed its trail to Hekate," the Doctor said.

We sat silently for a moment, reflecting on our first adventure together. The Doctor warned me it was dangerous: he never said it would be frightening.

"What did you mean before, when you said the protein in her body was being replaced?" I asked. I was careful not to use Hekate's name.

"Something was taking all the protein out of her body and replacing it with inorganic matter," the Doctor drawled.

"Okay…why?"

The question, innocent enough in my eyes, seemed to trigger a reaction in the Doctor. He looked directly at me for the first time in hours, his barely-there eyebrows pulling together. "Say that again," he ordered.

"…Why?" I repeated, confused. I wasn't sure if I was simply carrying out his request or asking why I should.

He leaped to his feet from the windowsill, showing a sort of tentative excitement. "That's the question we should be asking," he said, pointing at me. "We've been too busy asking 'who' or 'what', but never _'why'._ We've been trying to figure out what the cause was, but never the _reason."_ He beamed at me proudly. "You're brilliant, Erica. Truly, truly brilliant!" The Doctor spun around gleefully, his green velvet coat whirling behind him. "Now then: why? Why would someone masquerade as one of the most terrifying mythical creatures known to the universe, stab an innocent passerby, and then leech all their protein away?"

"Well, why would they need protein?" I asked, rising from my seat. "Everyone needs protein, sure, but what creature would need it so badly- and have the capability- to _steal_ it from another life form?"

"The particles in the wound were in the same family as the Pyrovilians," the Doctor said, losing me. "But not the same genus. They both relate to stone, but the gene isn't present in this life form."

"Uh…what's 'Pyrovilian'?" I asked.

"Aliens that invaded Pompeii," the Doctor explained shortly. "But the Pyrovilians were actual rock: whatever this is, it isn't. Unless…" His speech suddenly cut off as some great epiphany dawned on him. _"Oh."_

"What? What is it?" I asked frantically. "Do you know what happened?"

The Doctor still had that shock on his face. I couldn't shake him out of it—literally. I was contemplating throwing the rest of my drink in his face when he breathed, "Oh, that sly dog."

It was ages until the Doctor actually told me (and Herod, because for some unknown reason the Doctor saw fit to bring a mourning husband along) what was going on. Only when we had left the house and were marching down the road did the Doctor enlighten Herod and I. The Doctor seems to love being the only one in the room who knows something. Either that, or he just forgot to tell us.

"It's a Craggaron," the Doctor had explained, with poor Herod looking hopelessly lost. "A Craggaron's a distant relative of the Pyrovilians. They share the same proportions and biology, except for one single factor: Pyrovilians are stone, and Craggarons are not."

"But the thing in the furniture showroom," I butted in, "the thing there was all rocky and cracked; plus, it left a dusty trail."

"Well, that's also explained by their relation to Pyrovilians," the Doctor said. "Craggarons, normally, are flesh and blood; but if they're gravely injured, then all the protein in their bodies goes to heal those injuries. Any source possible- their skin, organs, muscles- anything that has protein will donate it."

"But if all that protein is spent healing that wound…" I trailed off.

The Doctor nodded. "Then that leaves it to be desired in the rest of their bodies," he finished. "Because of the deficiencies, the rest of their body turns to stone—it's just a fact of their biology."

"So you're saying," Herod began slowly, struggling to keep up (both with the conversation and the pace of our stride), "that this…this Craggaron creature stole my wife's…what is it, again?"

"Protein," I supplied. "Sort of like a life force."

"So the Craggaron drained my wife of 'protein' in order to heal itself?"

"Exactly," the Doctor and I said at the same time. The Doctor added, "It's also worth noting that they can't actually turn you to stone by looking at you: they're not Gorgons, that's complete myth."

"I'm sorry," Herod said, bringing all three of us to a halt. "I-I can't understand. Why did this happen?"

"It's all part of Craggaron biology," the Doctor explained, hopelessly missing the point. "They can take another organism's protein by pricking them once with a venomous sting to prep the enzymes for abduction, and then they touch them once more to complete the actual transfer. It's a nice and neat system, actually. It would be admirable if—"

"That's not what I meant," Herod interrupted, his voice cracking. Only then did the Doctor realize he had made Herod worse. I pitied Herod; I knew how he felt right now.

"Herod," I said, drawing him off to the side. "Whatever you're feeling right now, I understand; really, I do. It might feel like…like this just happened to Hekate specifically, as if Zeus struck her down on purpose. But remember: _the fault lies with her killer._ Not Hekate, not you, not the gods. It's the Craggaron's fault, and the Craggaron's alone."

It was the first time Hekate's name had been mentioned to Herod since she died, and I couldn't tell how it affected him. His face was unreadable; I couldn't tell whether it had been a good idea or not to say all that. After an interminable pause where Herod thought, I hoped, and the Doctor watched on the sidelines, Herod looked up at us at last.

"You're not from this place, are you?" he said in a low voice. "You're from somewhere fantastical, where everything makes sense and people know what to say."

"Yes, we are," I answered. "And we can stop this thing from ever hurting anyone like it hurt Hekate again. You can help us. Will you?"

Another long pause, and Herod answered, "Yes, I will."

I smiled and let out a breath I didn't know I was holding. "Thank you, Herod," I said sincerely.

"Not at all," he replied. "Hermia, you are quite the orator."

I was confused for a moment before I remembered that that was what I had told him to call me. "That's not—" I began, but then I saw the Doctor making frantic nods out of the corner of my eye, dragging a finger across his neck in the typical, "Don't!" fashion. "That's not something you hear every day," I finished, smiling.

"You should hear it every day," Herod finished, before turning to face the Doctor. "Where are we headed?"

"Back to the showroom," the Doctor said, holding up the sonic screwdriver. "Back to its lair." He began buzzing the screwdriver, looking for traces of Craggaron. Apparently, he hit a trail: the screwdriver began buzzing a higher note and the Doctor took off at a sprint, leaving Herod and I in his dust.

"Are you insane?" Herod yelled as we tried to keep up.

"A bit!" the Doctor replied, pointing the sonic screwdriver ahead of him, as if he were holding back an excited dog on a leash. The Doctor kept running and Herod and I kept following, until we ended up in the alley where the Doctor had first treated Hekate and pronounced her healthy.

The Doctor skidded to a stop, gesturing for Herod and I to do the same. He kept following the trace with the screwdriver, but now stepped forward hesitantly, keeping an arm out so Herod and I couldn't go in front of him. The sound of the screwdriver kept getting shriller until it was pointed directly at the wall.

"A dead end?" I panted. "Are you kidding? Your stupid, futuristic, cherished _Buzz Wand_ led us to a dead end?"

"Doctor Satorno, what is the meaning of this?" Herod demanded (though it would've sounded much more intimidating if he hadn't been gasping for breath).

"It's not led us wrong," the Doctor said, switching settings on the screwdriver. "Rather, it's leading…us…_on."_ He flicked tiny, clawed attachments out of the tip (an admittedly impressive feature I had not seen before) and pressed a button on the butt of the screwdriver, pointing it at the wall. Suddenly, the marble seemed to shimmer and wave, the image being replaced by a cloudy portal.

"What magic is this?" Herod said in fearful awe.

I reached out to touch the portal; as soon as my fingertips hit it, the portal waved out like a raindrop hitting water, and a great rush of wind blew through it.

"So the Craggaron wasn't hiding in the showroom at all," the Doctor said, examining the portal's shimmering edges. "The showroom was just the entrance gate."

"So…to get to the Craggaron," I said, "we have to go through the portal. How do we not know it's waiting for us?"

"You don't," Herod said. He pushed up between the Doctor and I, moving us aside so he could face the portal head-on. "You don't know what's waiting for you on the other side."

"Herod—" the Doctor began.

"Don't try to talk me out of this, Doctor," Herod interrupted. "You and your companion are the ones who can vanquish this beast in Athens; perhaps the only ones in all of Greece. I am unnecessary."

"No, Herod, you're not," I said, catching on. "Everyone's necessary to something."

"I was necessary to Hekate," Herod said, fighting back emotion. "She needed me, but she doesn't anymore. Now you need me to see what's waiting on the other side. I assume there is one?"

I nodded solemnly.

"Well then; that settles it," Herod declared. "If I'm not back shortly, take it as an evil omen. Do not come through. I shall look for a way to stop the Craggaron from coming back."

"Herod, you don't have to do this," the Doctor said.

Herod turned to look at the Doctor. "Don't I, though?" he replied. He looked back at me one last time and said, "Thank you, Hermia. You've helped me so much."

"That's not my real name, Herod," I said gently. This man was giving up his life for me: I should at least reveal the truth, no matter how insignificant it might be. "I'm really called Erica."

"Erica," Herod repeated softly. "I'm glad you have that name. 'Erica' suits you better." He took a deep breath. "I shall hope to see you shortly," he said, stepping through the portal just as the sun set.

I would say the Doctor and I waited with bated breath for him to return, except I don't remember breathing at all. I _do _remember, however, the Doctor slipping his hand into mine, and my strong grip in return.

"If he doesn't come back," I began in a low voice, "you're going to go through anyway, aren't you?"

"It's my duty," the Doctor answered, just as quietly. "It's my duty to him, to Hekate, and to any other victims the Craggaron's taken, and any it might take in the future."

"Then I'm going in, too," I said. I could feel the Doctor's building protest, but I cut it off before it could begin. "If it's your duty to avenge the Craggaron's victims, then it's my duty to make sure you do it right."

The Doctor stayed silent, processing my declaration. We shared the quiet as we waited with growing impatience for Herod to return, until I broke the tension.

"Doctor, I'm sorry," I apologized. The words didn't really want to come out—I don't like apologizing because then I have to admit to myself I'm wrong. But if I might die, and if the Doctor might die, then he needs to hear this. "I'm sorry I ran off in the showroom earlier, and for not trusting you. You've done nothing but try to help me, and it wasn't fair for me to accuse you of anything."

"Oh, Erica," the Doctor said, emotion finally coming back into his voice. "Erica, you never needed to apologize for that. I completely understand."

"That doesn't make it okay."

"It does for me." The Doctor looked down at me, a hint of a smile on his face. "Erica, you are completely forgiven. I wouldn't have expected any less from you—or really, anyone. Of _course_ you don't trust me. Hopefully, you will, someday. But you don't need to trust me if you want to find your sister."

"But I do," I said. "I _do _trust you. You've done everything I asked you to do. You saved my life after I had stormed away from you. Only an idiot wouldn't trust you after that." Finally, I looked up at his eyes, which were soft with happiness. "Are we…good?" I asked tentatively.

The Doctor laced his fingers with mine and brought our joined hands up, as if presenting evidence. "We're good."

Suddenly, a great rush of wind blew my hair and the Doctor's coat back, and then Herod reappeared in our midst, slightly out of breath.

"It's safe," he declared. "The Craggaron isn't in immediate sight. I say we plan a full frontal assault, using local troops—"

"All right, mate," the Doctor interrupted bracingly, clapping Herod on the shoulder. "I'd say the three of us should be enough to stop this thing, don't you?"

"We're the only ones?" Herod spluttered. "But surely, to ward off such a massive creature—"

"This creature needs our help," the Doctor cut off. "If we run in guns- no, sorry, not yet- if we run in _spears_ blazing, the Craggaron's gonna do nothing but fight us. If just the three of us go, then it might be more open to negotiation."

"Well, fine," Herod said, glancing worriedly towards me. "But should _she _come? Surely a gentlewoman would be safer out of the conflict."

_Athenians_, I thought. _Lovely architecture, but positively medieval._ "If you think I'm going to sit and wait for you to come back," I retorted, "then you've got another thing coming. Doctor?" I held out my arm, waiting for him to take it.

The Doctor smiled softly as he looped his arm through mine. "Are you _sure_ you want to come along, though?" the Doctor said under his breath. "Nothing against your gender—it's just that, you know, there's a very real chance the Craggaron _will_ hurt you…"

I rolled my eyes. "Do I have to repeat myself?" I said, sounding more confident that I felt. The Doctor didn't exactly seem happy with my decision, but he went along with it. We swiveled our heads to face the portal. "On three?"

The Doctor nodded. "One."

Herod stepped up to my other side and gave me a bracing nod. "Two."

I jerked my head in return. "Three."

"Geronimo," the Doctor whispered as we stepped through the portal.


	6. Chapter 6: The Alcazar

Chapter 6-The Alcazar

When you think about stepping through a portal, you expect a great, whooshing journey full of darkness and mystery; honestly, it's just like stepping from one room to another. Not very exciting, in my opinion.

The Doctor, Herod, and I suddenly found ourselves in the ruins of a crashed spaceship. After checking for any sign of the Craggaron, we began our careful journey through the ship, going as quietly as we could. Lights flickered dimly as we passed under them, and the ship creaked and groaned as we walked through it, mindful of where we placed our steps. Herod was asking questions left and right, but the Doctor kept shushing him. I didn't know who to feel sorry for: Herod, who was asking all the questions I wanted to, or the Doctor, because Herod clearly wasn't getting the message that we needed quiet.

It looked like the remains we were walking through used to be a grand, beautiful vessel. You know how when someone says, "space ship," and you start thinking all metal walls and Star Trek teleports? Well, this ship looked like the inside of a castle that had gone to ruin centuries ago. The only thing unnatural about it was the artificial lighting that shined out of sconces in the corners. Instead of metal, the walls, ceiling and floor were made of now-crumbling stone. Herod's curious voice was echoing away. There were vines and small growths of grass between the cracks in the stone.

"Doctor…?" I whispered, finally breaking. "Doctor, how could _this_ be a spaceship?"

"The planet of Cragg is made up of rock that's less dense than Earth's," the Doctor explained. "Plus, they found ways to manipulate the properties of the rock to specific purposes."

"So they get their rocks customized, and then build spaceships with them," I clarified (although it wasn't very clear at all).

"Exactly," the Doctor said.

Finally, we came upon a massive door, slightly ajar. It was at least fifteen feet tall! "Was this really a good idea, Doctor?" I asked, eyeing the incredibly large doorway.

"It's better than trying to invade Russia in the middle of winter," the Doctor replied. He snuck up very close to the door and carefully peeked around it.

"What's in there?" I asked when the Doctor retracted his head.

"Flight deck," the Doctor answered. "It looks all clear. Hurry in!" He gestured for Herod and I to run in, looking over our shoulders as we ran past. There stood the control panel, raised too high to be comfortable for a human, but operational for one. Across the room was an identical doorway, in which the door lay, ripped off its hinges. Above that doorway, carved elegantly into the stone, was the word _Alcazar_—the name of the ship_._

"Herod, guard the door we just came in," the Doctor ordered as he joined us. "Erica, the one over there."

"What'll you do?" I asked as Herod obediently went to his post.

"I'll try to get the ship operational," the Doctor answered, drawing up to the flight controls. The control desk was bizarrely constructed: it was mostly stone, but all the levers and buttons and lights were made of metal. The controls reached about chest level on the Doctor as he began working; with his arms raised absurdly to reach the controls, he looked like was treading water.

I went to the torn-down door and took up my watch, hiding in the foot of space between the doorjamb and the wall. I was peering into the hall, on high alert for any sign of movement (I was reminded horribly of the Basilisk in _Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets_—I was always so scared of it). And so we fell in: the Doctor working feverishly and talking to himself while Herod and I watched the halls in fearful silence. I didn't understand much of the Doctor's monologue (which meant Herod understood so much less), but it sounded like things weren't going according to plan.

"What's the status on the ship, Doctor?" I asked worriedly.

"Well," the Doctor began, drawing the word out. "It seems that the Craggaron has locked the ship's takeoff systems."

"Can you disable them?"

"With time, yes."

"How much time?"

"…Quite a lot."

"Then the beast will no doubt have found us then," Herod said resolutely. He removed something from inside the folds of his toga, something the light gleamed off of. It was a large, circular blade: a scythe. Herod saw me staring at it and explained, "It is a souvenir of my time in Turkey. I thought our expedition might require a blade."

Finally the Doctor turned around. "No, no, NO!" he said, so quickly I could hardly tell one 'no' from another. "Absolutely NO weapons!"

"Sir, are you asking me not to fight this creature?" Herod spat.

"Yes, I am!" the Doctor retorted.

"Why shouldn't I?"

"Because it might be willing to negotiate!" the Doctor said, half-wearily and half-worriedly. "This is intelligent life, Herod; intelligent life from another _world,_ and you would go and kill it?"

"If it is 'intelligent', as you say, would it have murdered Hekate and countless others?"

The Doctor was silent and shocked; so was I. Herod looked like an angry bull. "I will go find it," Herod said, breathing like he'd just won a race. He stalked away, the scythe swinging at his side.

I looked back at the Doctor only once before I turned and ran after Herod.

"Erica!" the Doctor called, my name echoing off the walls. It brought me up short: he had called after me now the same way he'd called after me in the furniture showroom, just before I'd seen the Craggaron.

I turned around. "I'll be careful," I vowed. My word didn't seem to soothe the Doctor: he looked almost stricken, like he'd never see me again. "I promise."

His jaw tightened, and he nodded.

I spun on my heel and bolted through the Alcazar's hallways, searching frantically for the gleam of the scythe or the shadow of a toga on the wall. I considered calling Herod's name out, but someone other than he might respond. So I ran through the ship, hoping I wasn't too late.

_He couldn't have gone _that _far,_ I thought as I approached a corner. Suddenly, a huge shadow flew into the light. It was an arm raising a curved sword, poised and ready.

"Herod!" I exclaimed. "Herod, it's only me. It's only Erica." The shadow hand tightened its grip on the scythe, but then the arm lowered, and the entire shadow disappeared as Herod stepped around the corner.

"Erica?" he questioned. "Why did you come after me?"

"You ran off without backup," I answered. "That's as stupid as invading…oh, wait, that hasn't happened yet. Well, it's stupid and unsafe. I couldn't let you run off like that."

"But you left the Doctor alone."

"The Doctor's fine. He'll see the Craggaron coming if it does. But we need to get back to him, quickly."

"Very well," Herod sulked. Part of me didn't blame him: having to apologize was not fun.

"Don't worry," I soothed. "The Doctor will understand." If the Doctor could forgive me, then he could forgive Herod of the same thing.

Suddenly, a terrified yell rang through the stone walls, long and lingering. Herod and I both knew exactly who the scream belonged to: the Doctor.

We were running before I even remember deciding to. Herod sprinted alongside me, the scythe swinging viciously between us. Our steps echoed off the walls, but neither of us cared: we just had to get to the Doctor in time.

The massive doorway suddenly sprang in front of us, waiting for someone to pass through it. Herod and I bolted through it and the Doctor's predicament suddenly became clear to us.

The Craggaron had appeared in the control deck, and was pinning the Doctor to the wall with one stony hand. It was a huge, hulking creature, at least twice the size of a human. Its legs were stone, as well as parts of the torso. There were rocky patches on its arms and shoulders, but nothing too serious. It was hard to tell if the head was intact, because it looked gray but also soft. In fact, the head was the least human-looking thing about it: you could barely see it around the giant flaps of rocky, cracked skin that jutted out from the neck. You ever see those lizards whose weird collars suddenly appear out of their necks when they get scared? It was kinda like that.

"Foul beast!" Herod cried, raising his scythe and throwing it. The scythe spun end over end before the point sank into one of the still-fleshy parts of the Craggaron (I would've praised his aim if I hadn't been so horrified). The Doctor looked up from his battle with the Craggaron's hand and found Herod and I standing there, scared but determined.

The sight of us seemed to scare him, too.

"Erica, run!" the Doctor yelled, pained. "Get out of here!"

Slowly, the Craggaron turned toward us, taking its hand from the Doctor, who collapsed to the ground in a heap. Its face was grotesque: four small, black eyes; a wide, flat nose; and a huge, snarling, mouth. The Craggaron reached around and plucked the scythe from its back, the wound beginning to crust up into stone.

_So that's how it works,_ I thought. The Craggaron lifted the scythe up and pulled its arm back, getting ready to use its newfound weapon. I dove behind the control panel, dragging Herod with me, as the scythe flew through the air we'd just been standing in and embedded itself in the rock wall. We could hear the Craggaron's laborious steps toward us.

"You make sure the Doctor is all right," Herod whispered. "I will keep the creature out of your way."

"Are you sure, Herod?" I asked. _I _didn't want to be the one that thing was chasing, but he probably didn't, either. Plus, I signed up for this; Herod was just dragged into it.

He nodded. "I will manage," he said. "Wait until the room is clear." He raised himself into a crouch. "If you find a way to vanquish the Craggaron, _do it._ Do not fear for my safety." For a moment, Herod looked determined, as if he had already considered the consequences for whatever actions the Doctor might take. But then that moment was gone and he stood up, pulled his scythe from the wall, and turned to face the Craggaron.

"You need my life force, loathsome creature?" Herod shouted, raising his scythe. "Come and get it!" He spun on his heel and bolted down the hall, luring the Craggaron away. I waited until the Craggaron had moved so far away that its footfalls ceased causing vibrations on the floor to leave my hiding spot and dash to the Doctor, groaning on the floor.

"Erica," he moaned as I broke into his line of sight.

"Did it do anything to you?" I asked, giving him a cursory exam.

"No, nothing serious," he replied. He reached out a hand and I pulled him to his feet. He rubbed his ribs and said, "It was about to sting me, but I'm fine. Come on, we have bigger problems."

We ran back to the controls, which I could barely see because of the height of the panel. "I can't get the ship operational," the Doctor explained. "There's no chance we can fly out of here."

"Can we blow the ship up?" I asked. "If we could, we could make it explode and take the Craggaron with it."

The look on the Doctor's face told me that he had considered that possibility, but he wished it couldn't come to that. "I can," the Doctor said. "It would only take a few minutes to reroute the remaining power in the ship to the engines and then—"

"But you can do it?"

"Yes."

"Do we have any other choice?"

The Doctor didn't answer. Instead, he began reluctantly flipping switches and pressing buttons, shifting the power throughout the ship. I watched both entrances anxiously, looking for some sign of Herod. I hoped he'd show up so we can all get out of here; but if he appears, then so does the Craggaron. I was stuck—what should I do?

"It's ready," the Doctor said somberly after a minute or two. He was staring at a lever topped with a red knob. "One more lever and the place goes boom."

"Will we get to the portal in time?" I asked. I felt heartless for doing so.

"Yes. You and I'll make it," the Doctor said.

"Pull it."

"Not until Herod comes back."

It was so frustrating in the most depressing way. What do I do? Urge the Doctor to pull the lever and sacrifice Herod's life for my own, or wait until Herod finds his way back to us (if he ever does) and possibly bring the Craggaron through to Athens, trapping it there? I wanted to wait for Herod, but I also wanted to make it out of this alive.

That's when it hit me.

Herod wants to die.

"What did you say?" the Doctor asked, in a low voice like a rumble of thunder. I stayed silent: I hadn't said anything! I'd only thought—_oh, _I must've spoken out loud.

It didn't make the truth less pleasant.

"Herod doesn't want to live through this, Doctor," I said. "Before he led the Craggaron away, he told me to do whatever we need to kill it; he told me to disregard his safety entirely." The realization dawned horribly on the Doctor. His face held a certain kind of pain that told me that while Herod believed life wasn't worth living, the Doctor believed so.

I remembered that look. When I was fourteen or so, I was going through a hard spell. I missed my mom and I was stressed from school; in a fit of dramatic despair, I accidentally let slip to my father that I wanted to die. My dad looked the exact same way the Doctor did. It made me wonder if the Doctor felt like this about anyone who wants to commit suicide or throw their life away. If he did, then does that make him a god, constantly worrying about his people?

"Are you absolutely sure?" he asked, dreading my answer. So did I.

"Yes," I whispered. I wish I hadn't been, but the look in Herod's eyes when I saw him last wasn't determined; it was accepting. Accepting his fate, and putting it in my hands.

The Doctor reached up, wrapped his hand around the lever's red knob, and closed his eyes, turning his face away. With one smooth motion, he yanked the lever down.

The room began shaking, and horrible sounds seemed to reverberate out of nowhere. The Doctor stood still, seemingly unaware of the spaceship's fate. I grabbed his hand and took off, dragging him behind me as I bolted for the portal. Alarms began to blare and the sound of rocks cracking echoed off the walls, but I tried to pay no attention as we ran wildly for the way out. I wasn't as scared as the last time I ran through these halls; a grim sort of anxiety had set in, and I just knew to keep running, keep running, keep running. I somehow remembered our route there—I honestly don't know how. I just had to keep running.

We turned a corner and found the portal at the end of the hall, just as a shrill beeping began: a countdown. The Doctor and I dashed down the corridor, with him stumbling behind me, and both of us hoping we'd make it in time—and hoping _against_ hope that Herod would miraculously, too.

I jumped for the portal, pulling the Doctor through just as the alarm stopped.


	7. Chapter 7: Bringing It Home

Chapter 7- Bringing It Home

The Doctor and I fell to the dusty cobblestones, back in the alley behind the furniture showroom. Only then did my hand fall from his, and that was only to stop myself from face-planting the ground. I flexed my fingers; they had cramped up with how tightly I'd been gripping the Doctor's hand. I pulled the Doctor further away from the portal, which was now shimmering and cracking. I dragged him against the opposite wall, which we sagged against as we caught our breath and watched the portal disappear with a series of flashes and one last great breath of wind.

I remember all this worry rushing up to me as the portal to the Alcazar vanished, worrying when it was pointless to worry anymore. All the fear I should've had as we escaped was now making itself present. What if the Doctor had made a mistake while he tinkered with the ship, and rendered the portal inoperable and trapped us there? What if the portal had spit us out someplace so far we could never get back to the TARDIS? What if we had gotten stuck _inside _the portal, forever trapped in the nowhere space between the Alcazar and Athens? My ears began to pound as I realized just how close to death we might have been. But all these after-worries were unnecessary: the Doctor had gotten us through, and that's all that mattered.

I had definitely demolished my distrust of the Doctor.

Carefully, the Doctor and I climbed to our feet, somber. The Doctor looked especially grieved, even more than when he pulled the lever in the Alcazar. He looked like he was about to say something, but I couldn't stand his grief any more.

I flung my arms around him tightly and buried my face in his shoulder.

There was a second of confusion when he didn't know how to react, but then he gave in and wrapped his own arms around me, his chin perching on the top of my head. He held me tight and secure, like I would fall apart if he let up just a little. It wasn't me who'd fall apart, though. Well, I'm actually not sure—emotions ran high for both of us. I probably needed that as much as he did.

After a few moments, we separated. Before we could say anything to each other, the ground suddenly shook beneath us, making us grab at each other again to keep our balance.

"What the hell was that?" I asked, clutching the Doctor's arms in vice-like grips.

"It was the Alcazar," the Doctor said, steadying me. It was the first time either of us had referred to the ship by name out loud. He glanced out of the alley, looking at the people without really seeing them. "It must've been so deep in the Earth that the shocks of the explosion only just made it to the crust." Still carefully hanging on to each other, we made our way to the end of the alley. All around, people were climbing to their feet and picking up wares that had fallen from stands, looking around for some explanation.

"They'll never know," I said as we watched them. "They'll never know that Earth's first alien encounter happened right beneath their feet." Neither of us said it, but we both knew that Athens would never know what had happened to Herod. I slipped my hand into the Doctor's, squeezing it comfortingly. He glanced at me, a shadow of a smile coming back.

After a moment, the Doctor said, "Well, not the _very _first…"

"What?" I interjected as the Doctor and I began walking down the road back to the TARDIS. "What do you mean, 'not the very first'? There were _others _before this?"

"Well, I wouldn't say 'alien' encounter," the Doctor amended. "Actually…they were here first."

_"What?"_ The Doctor and I went back and forth as we looked for the TARDIS, with me asking every question possible and the Doctor giving me vague answers that kept me running in circles. When we finally found the TARDIS again and took shelter behind its doors, I breathed a sigh of relief. We were putting Athens behind us, once and for all.

The Doctor bounded up to his controls, a good deal more excited than he's been since we'd left. He enthusiastically began operating his beloved machine as I lagged behind him. I climbed up the steps and leaned against the banister, watching him like a mother watching her child on a playground. I was exhausted. I don't know how long we've been in Greece, but it must've been a while.

The Doctor had noticed. "Go on and get some sleep," he said, smiling gently.

I glanced around. "Where?"

The Doctor smacked himself on the forehead. "That's right, you don't have a room yet, do you?" He swung around to the computer monitor and tapped a few buttons, and after a few seconds added, "There! Go down the hall, take your first right, and your room is the second door on the left."

"Aren't you going to get some rest?" I asked. He wasn't superhuman—wait, never mind.

"Rest is boring!" the Doctor exclaimed, whirling back around the console to face me. "I only need it once every week or so."

"When was the last time you had some sleep?"

"Three days back!"

I sighed. "Fine. I'll see you…later." I would've said _tomorrow,_ but was there really a tomorrow or yesterday in a time machine? "Good night, Doctor."

"Sweet dreams, Erica," he replied. I smiled back at him as I ascended the steps to my newly-acquired room.

"First right, second door to the left," I chanted, just to be sure I didn't mess up the directions and end up walking into a room containing a black hole or something. I finally found the room, and the doors opened for me into a masterpiece.

There was a huge king bed with thick brown and white comforters, made up as if the world's best housekeeper had done it. There were large white double doors with brass handles in both the left and right walls, which were painted hazel, like coffee. There was a white dresser in one of the far corners of the room, a hamper in the other, and a nightstand next to the bed, but that was the rest of the furnishing. On a whim, I decided to try the double doors on the left.

I pulled the doors back and found myself staring into a warehouse of more doors. Just doors, doors, doors: there were three levels of balconies containing nothing but _doors._ I climbed up the steps and tried one, with a plaque over it that said:

United States of America, Earth, 1950-1959

Curious, I opened the doors and found racks upon racks of beautiful clothes, just _waiting _to be worn. There were dresses of every shade, pants of every length, and shoes of every size, all from the fifties. Clothes were organized by what type they were (pants, dresses, shoes, and so on), what size, and then by color. The room seemed to stretch on forever, containing heaps of fifties trends.

This.

Was.

_Beautiful._

After that, I tried more rooms: one meant for Victorian England, another for Aboriginal societies in ancient Africa, and one for Brazil in the thirtieth century, the latter of which included clothes with two extra sleeves in the back and necklaces made of coins.

"Clothes for every era on every planet," I said aloud. "TARDIS, you are _incredible."_

The lights flared in appreciation as I looked for the room dedicated to modern American clothing—mercifully close to my room. I went back before I got lost in the clothes: it was nice to have so many to choose from. I love shopping, but it's so hard to get it done.

When I reached my bedroom, I did nothing but cross it and plunge through the other double doors, excited for whatever wonder would be there, waiting for me.

I found myself in a beautiful, modern bathroom, just begging to be used. There was a huge shower with at least thirty water jets set into the walls, floor, and ceiling, the controls on a metal panel set on the glass door; a gigantic, obsidian hot tub, with clawed feet, a golden faucet, and even more massage jets inside; a sea-green sink and mirror above it, the medicine cabinet stocked with moisturizers and night masks galore; a tall cabinet next to the shower, filled to bursting with fluffy towels, washcloths, and terrycloth robes; and an opaque screen in the corner, which I slid back to reveal a simple white toilet, the lid down.

_Some things never change,_ I thought, smiling as I slid the privacy screen back. I noticed yet another door, blending in with the white walls. I turned the knob and went through it—and if I thought I'd seen it all, then I was horribly wrong.

There was a huge, huge observation deck, looking into deep space. I ran to the banister, eagerly soaking up the images of spiraling galaxies, of pink and orange nebulas, of bright comets blazing through space. My jaw dropped.

Suddenly, a familiar voice piped up, "Enjoying the view?"

I whirled around to find the Doctor leaning in the doorway, watching me with a smile. He pushed himself off the doorjamb and began walking toward me, continuing, "Came up to see that everything was to your liking."

"No complaints here," I said, turning back to the beautiful view. The Doctor joined me at the banister, though I wasn't sure if he was looking at the stars or at my reaction.

"It's lovely, isn't it?" the Doctor said.

"The final frontier," I joked. We shared a moment of comfortable silence, happy in each other's presence.

"Well, I'll be letting you go," he said when the moment had passed, clapping me on the shoulder. "I've got tinkering to do. The TARDIS will see to your bedtime preparations."

"Good night, Doctor," I said for the last time that night, bringing him in for one more hug. He squeezed me briefly, then kissed my forehead.

"See ya later."

"See ya."

Smiling he left the observation deck, I after a few minutes of solitude. I rummaged through the dresser, where I found pajamas, socks, gloves, undergarments, and all sorts of little accessories, and changed into a pair of baggy, purple plaid pajamas. I threw my old clothes into the hamper (which funneled them away to probably the wardrobe), found the toothpaste and an abundance of toothbrushes, and began my night rituals: brushing teeth, combing hair, the works. I even tried a face mask for the hell of it (ancient Athens was hot, and the sun was not kind to your skin). Finally, I settled in to bed—my God, the bed felt like sinking into a pit of mashed potatoes. As I slid the light dimmer down to darkness, I thought about Naomi, I thought about the Doctor, and I thought about Herod.

_My mission is to find Naomi,_ I reminded myself. _But that doesn't mean I can't help people who need it along the way. And it might not be that bumpy of a ride._


	8. Chapter 8: Tomorrowland

Quick shout out to s, who left a dazzling review. I just wanna let you know that there _will _be more sweet moments as this fic goes on-it's finished, and close to 74,000 words. (Also, I want to let my readers know that chapter 14 will contain some sexual violence, but I will post a summary at the beginning of the next chapter in case anyone needs to skip it.)

* * *

Chapter 8- Tomorrowland

You'd think that sleeping in the TARDIS was impossible: I mean, the ship jaunts and lurches like nobody's business. But it was like sleeping in a regular old building: there was no sign that I was actually sleeping on a spaceship that apparently didn't like to be told where to fly. But I slept well that night: a better sleep than I'd gotten in a while.

It was a struggle to wake up. The bed seemed to develop its own gravitational pull, dragging me deeper into the softness. Only the thought of Naomi pulled me out. I rolled out of the pile of blankets and trudged into the bathroom, where the lights were mercifully dim. I blindly found a hairbrush and yanked it through my chestnut snarls of hair, taming it until it was semi-presentable. Giving the rest up as a bad job, I stripped and hit the shower—actually, it was more like a spa. I tried to carefully read and select the right buttons from the metal panel controlling the water, but in my sleepy state I ended up smashing three different buttons while aiming for the wrong one. But the TARDIS, whatever she thought of me before, seemed to pity me, and took it upon herself to adjust the settings of the shower so I could properly wake up. The water, just hot enough to be comfortable, washed the sleep from my body, with the help of citrus-smelling body lotion. After twenty minutes, the water stopped, and I was about to step out when a sudden, unexpected blast of hot air hit me from above, shocking me so much that I screamed. Quickly clapping my hand over my mouth (I prayed the Doctor hadn't been able to hear—how humiliating would _that _be?), I let the air blow at me: it must be some futuristic drying method that masochists had invented.

When the blowing stopped and I was more dry than wet, I lowered my hand from my mouth and stumbled out of the shower stall, taking a towel from the cabinet and wrapping it around me. "A little _warning_ would've been nice!" I spat. The lights flared at their brightest, blinding me. Behind me, water rose up from the floor jets in an angry burst.

My anger fizzled out. How could you be angry with a ship that could think for itself? "Thanks, TARDIS," I said, my voice now sounding kinder. In response, the lights dimmed to a soft glow. I smiled; maybe the machine and I could get along after all.

When I was sufficiently dry, I exchanged the towel for a terrycloth robe and journeyed once again into the huge wardrobe room. Deciding to stick with clothing from my own era, I browsed the selection, looking for clothing that could encompass any and all environment. Soon admitting that the task was impossible, I turned to my new ally. "Okay, TARDIS. By the looks of it, the Doctor never knows where you're taking us and just hopes for the best. You seem to be the one in charge. So, can you give me a hand? I don't want to show up in Antarctica dressed for Death Valley."

On my left, a light flared up brightly, catching my attention. A light further away lit up, and another after that, leading me deeper into the chamber. Hurrying, I followed the lights as they led me past racks upon racks of clothes, past winter coats and bikinis and huge, rainbow umbrellas. Finally, a far-off light blazed and remained bright, and I skidded to a stop in front of clothing meant for the coldest October days. It was all sweaters and scarves and fuzzy jackets: my kind of clothes.

I quickly dressed in a soft purple v-neck, dark blue jeans, and a pair of sturdy hiking boots (I could never resist a boot—that was what I told my father when I said I wanted to go to Italy). I left my hair down: I had to keep it up every day in the bakery, and I could use a little change-up. On a whim, I slid a brown suede jacket from its hanger and slipped it on; yes, it definitely pulled everything together. Finally satisfied, I left the wardrobe (which took quite a long time) and then my room, striding down the hall to the console room. The Doctor was flitting around the controls, turning a knob here and winding a crank there. The green jacket had been thrown onto one of the chairs, seemingly ripped off in a bout of energy.

"Morning, Doctor," I greeted, yawning.

The Doctor looked up, seemingly shocked. "Wow, you're up already? Did you get enough sleep?"

"I think so, Doctor," I said, descending the stairs to the console. "I mean, I'm not about to drop off again. What have you been doing without me?"

He rubbed the back of his neck, massaging out the knots. "I've been trying to fix the Aligrena up, so we can learn more from it."

"You mean we broke it when we put it in Sleep Mode?"

"No. It sort of…broke itself." The Doctor gestured for me to come forward, and he brought me around to see the Aligrena, hooked up to wires like an Intensive Care patient in a hospital. The screen bar where its eyes should have been was dark. "It's protocol for them to go into complete shutdown if attacked and infect themselves with a computer virus, so their captor can't glean anything from them."

"Why were you trying to fix it, though?" I asked. "It already told us where it had been last. We already know where it took Naomi: back to Sarsgaroth. We don't need to know more."

"Well, we do," the Doctor amended. "We should know as much as we can, and we have a fountain of knowledge right here. Problem is," he began shaking the Aligrena, like a little boy at a pinball machine who hoped to get a better score, "the fountain's been clogged."

"So where do we get Drano?"

The Doctor glanced up at me, smiling a bit. He seemed proud of my ability to keep up with his metaphors. He let go of the Aligrena and began his one-man Console Tango, dancing around it as he began getting the TARDIS ready for travel. "There's someone I know on Delta Delta Noda Four. One of the greatest hackers in the universe. Plus, he owes me a favor." He briefly looked up from his mad mashing of buttons. "By the way, can you run to the kitchen? Take two lefts and it'll be the third door on the right. Can you grab a bag of ice? Should be in the refrigerator."

"Should I ask why?"

"I lost a bet."

I stared at him for a moment, trying to figure out what kind of bet the Doctor made and why in the world they bet a bag of ice. "I shouldn't have asked at all," I said, turning up the stairs. "I'll get the ice. Oh, can you—"

The TARDIS began _vwoorp_ing and the entire ship quaked, stealing my balance. I grabbed the banister and steadied a hand on a step above me, just in time to stop my ribs from slamming into the sharp edges of the stairs.

"What was that?" the Doctor yelled over the noise.

"I was going to ask if you could _wait_ until you started!" I retorted, loud enough for him to hear me.

"…Sorry!" he apologized meekly.

By the time I had safely gotten the ice to the Doctor (oh, the kitchen was _marvelous_—it was like something out of Gordon Ramsay's wildest dreams), we had landed on Delta Delta Noda Four. Naturally, the TARDIS had stopped shaking as soon as I had come back down the stairs.

"Thank you, Erica!" the Doctor said gleefully, taking the bag of ice from me. He glanced at me: my shirt was wet from the bag swinging onto it, my arms were freezing from holding it, and my angry face was rosy from when I had to search in the walk-in freezer for the ice, held _waaaay_ in the back. I stared back at him; by the look in his eyes, I must've looked like I was about to murder him. "I'll get it next time," he promised, turning away from me. He set the ice on the floor and went to his jacket, pulling it on energetically. He picked the ice back up and held it out to me expectantly.

My stare was dead-eyed. "It's your turn."

"It's either this or that," he replied, nodding his head back to the Aligrena. Scowling, I took back the detested back of ice, holding it as the Doctor swiveled around and began unhooking the Aligrena from the console. When it was free, the Doctor began struggling for a way to carry it that wasn't awkward. He ended up carrying it over his behind him, his arms over his head and the Aligrena's tentacles loudly trailing behind him.

"Don't suppose I can carry this without making a scene," the Doctor said, admitting defeat. "Well, there've been weirder things on Delta Delta than two people carrying a big, leggy metal slab and a bag of ice." He glanced between us. "Well, maybe not."

"Come on," I grumbled. First alien planet I visited would remember me forever as an idiot. Not exactly the best first impression.

The Doctor led the way out of the TARDIS, the Aligrena blocking any view beyond the doors. When he finally moved out of the way, I had to stop.

The TARDIS had landed in what looked like a shopping center. It was a huge dome where the walls were made of something close to glass, except slightly cloudier. There were shops all over, and little stands and food stalls in the open space that served as a thoroughfare. And the people! The people weren't people at all, actually. Their bodies were stocky and scaled, and they stood on four fat, jelly-like legs. There were only two arms, but they seemed to have three elbows each. They had no hair, and their eyeballs were light green. Oh yeah, and they were blue.

The shops sold things no human from my time could dream of: collapsible, watertight coffee mugs; contact lenses that could play movies or put you in virtual reality; and even small, floating, glass spheres that could store as much information as you needed that it would display as a hologram at a keyword. Long, streamlined spaceships flew over the ceiling in all directions, though the thick walls blocked out all sound. This other world was remarkable, but also strangely…_familiar._

"Erica Stone, welcome to the Business and Travel Coliseum of Delta Delta Noda Four!" the Doctor proclaimed. He waved one arm around briefly before returning it to the Aligrena. "Everyone comes here for the latest gadget or to make the biggest business, or even to fly off to the furthest reaches of the universe! Anything you could possibly need is right within your reach!"

"So, it's an airport," I summarized. "A big, alien airport of the future." This place was extraordinary. I would've wanted to look around if we hadn't been here with a mission in mind. I shook myself out of my awestruck daze and asked, "So where's your computer geek?"

"Right this way!" With that, the Doctor took off, easy to follow because of the noise the Aligrena's metal arms made, dragging on the floor. I hurried after him as he led me down the huge corridor, past countless electronics stores and coffee shops—well, maybe not _coffee,_ but you get my meaning. The patrons were giving us funny looks: but honestly, I would've done that, too, if the situation were reversed.

After what seemed like an eternity of scrutiny from the aliens, the Doctor finally turned in to a shop with a marked difference from the rest. While the other stores were brightly lit and spacious, this one was dimmer and longer than wide. There weren't many shoppers in it, but that was probably a good thing: less questions for us.

The Doctor set the Aligrena on the glass counter, somehow causing a red square to appear near the corner. Words faded into existence beneath the square:

Press For Service

The Doctor pressed two fingers onto the square, and both it and its caption shimmered away as a long, low note sounded in a back room, much like a ship's horn. A back panel slid into the wall and a blue, scaled alien entered, the extra footsteps echoing off the linoleum floor.

"Doctor!" it exclaimed, walking up to us. The body seemed very still as the legs worked double-time; it was a bit disconcerting, to say the least. "Doctor, welcome back! It's been ages!"

The Doctor's face broke into a wide smile. "Algo!" he exclaimed genially. The two met and shook hands, each smiling. They had clearly had some quality male bonding time.

Algo clapped the Doctor on the shoulder, the triple-elbowed arm looking particularly lumpy as it moved. "I trust you've been getting into trouble?"

"As always," the Doctor replied with a laugh. "And I'm paying up." He gestured to the bag of ice in my hands. "This is Erica, by the way. She's a friend."

I nodded hello. "What did you two bet, by the way?" I asked. "And why on…why in the world would you bet a bag of ice?" I handed Algo the ice, trying (and failing) not to stare as his excessive elbows moved as he reached.

"The Doctor and I were betting on the outcome of a marathon last time he was here," Algo explained. "The Coliseum was the finish line."

"And the Nodans like to keep things rather cool, if you'd noticed," the Doctor supplied as Algo stowed the ice behind the counter. "It's a stroke of luck you dressed so warm."

"Not luck, exactly," I began explaining, but Algo had started examining the Aligrena on his counter.

"Oh, Doctor, you never cease to astound me," Algo said, laughing. "You've brought quite the puzzle for me. What happened?"

The Doctor hesitated. "It infected itself with a computer virus," he explained. I let out a breath I hadn't realized I was holding. "It has some vital information that we can't get to. Well, not without a little help."

Algo smiled. "And I'm the help, aren't I?" He sighed. "Just how much trouble did you get yourself into this time, Doctor?"

"Fair bit," the Doctor conceded. "So can you do it?"

Algo tilted his head back and forth, weighing the pros and cons. "I don't know, Doctor," he said, drawing is words out in uncertainty. "It's going to be tough."

"Remember, Algo," the Doctor said, leaning forward. "You owe me. For that bad bit of trouble with Madore?"

Algo's cheerfulness degraded. "It's going to take time," he said flatly. "Quite a bit. I'll also need the proper tools."

"I can get you whatever you need," the Doctor replied. As Algo began listing of appliances with strange names and stranger functions, I began wandering around the shop. It was filled with gadgets and gizmos that even Einstein couldn't dream of; but by the looks of them, they were at least five years out of date. The dim lighting didn't help matters, either. The entire shop gave off an aura like Blockbuster stores—they had had their heyday, but now they were obsolete.

"We'll be right back," the Doctor said, looping his arm through mine and leading me out of the shop. We plunged back into the stream of Nodans on the thoroughfare, sticking out among the mass of blue.

"Where are we going?" I asked.

"We have some errands to run for him," the Doctor replied. "We should be able to find everything he needs in the Coliseum."

"Do we have money?"

He steered me to a large, cloudy-glass-with-a-red-screen machine in the wall that evoked images of ATMs. The Doctor unhooked his arm from mine and glanced over his shoulder, pulling the sonic screwdriver from his pocket and buzzing it at the screen when he was sure no one was looking. Suddenly, golden paper bills began spitting out of a frosted-glass slot in the machine and fluttering to the floor. I hurriedly picked them up, wary of observers.

"That should be enough to tide us over," the Doctor said under his breath, pocketing the screwdriver. I divided the money into two piles, thrusting one into the Doctor's hand. I folded my pile of bills in half and shoved them in my pocket, hoping the wad didn't stand out. "Enough for Algo's utensils and a souvenir or two for us."

"Did we just commit grand larceny, Doctor?" I asked, the cash feeling horribly conspicuous in my pocket.

The Doctor tilted his head, trying to soften the blow. "More like simple theft," he answered unconvincingly. "It's only a reserve for a bank, and it's gonna make its way back into the bank someday."

"The things we do for the latest gadget," I said as we began walking.


	9. Chapter 9: Gatecrashing

Chapter 9- Gatecrashing

Come to think of it, Naomi would've loved Delta Delta. Everything was about technology. So was she. She loved getting the next upgrade. Sure, most kids always wanted the next new Apple thing, but Naomi loved to actually see how it worked; she loved exploring the fuse boxes in our apartment and Just Desserts (an interest that made me worry, especially when she was younger) and trying to figure out how to make it run better. She was the only one able to fix the microwave when it broke a few years ago. Naomi would've loved Delta Delta.

The Doctor led me into one of the tech stores, brightly lit and built, of course, from the cloudy glass. There was a large sign in the back, bearing the name, "Digital Outlet" in creative lettering. Another Nodan, with a more professional aura than Algo, waited at the counter.

"Hello!" the Doctor greeted jovially. "I was wondering if you might be able to help us…"

While the Doctor and the sales clerk began hashing out details, I took to wandering around the store again. Honestly, some of the gadgets in there…it was like Steve Jobs' toy box. There were several patrons milling around in the store—just enough to be popular, but not crowded. I watched them use all the products, since figuring them out myself was useless: one group was using a strange trio of what looked like eight-sided dice to record their voices in one and have their words play back in the other two. A group of smaller Nodans- children or teens, maybe- were giggling over a slab of cloud-glass that distorted their reflections hilariously. Two adult Nodans were laughing as a strange, five-legged metal spidery thing crawled over their bodies.

"Skymall has _nothing _on this," I whispered.

A Nodan hurriedly pushed past me, quickly making its way toward the door. I thought nothing of it until someone shouted out, "Thief!"

Years of running my own business kicked in, and I began bolting after the Nodan, who had made it to the thoroughfare. The store crowd followed after me, and I could hear the Doctor shouting, telling me to come back. Though the thief had twice as many legs as me, it seemed to trip over them more than I, and I caught it quickly by tackling it to the ground.

"Did you think you'd get away with it?" I hissed, pulling the lumpy arms behind its back. I finally noticed the object the Nodan had stolen: a chrome ball with spokes sticking out of it at regular intervals, lights softly glowing at the tips. I tried to pry it out of his hand, but the thief had an unbreakable grip. "What, did you need the next upgrade that badly? What do you need this for?"

"The journey home," the thief answered flatly. It didn't seem to be scared or anything: in fact, he seemed completely calm. I've seen criminals get tackled to the ground, but they were not as calm as this one.

I shrugged it off—I was on an alien planet, maybe they ran things differently here. "Come on, just give it—BACK!" I yanked on the device again just as I heard footsteps I could tell belonged to a two-legged creature.

"Don't _do _that!" the Doctor admonished, finally catching up.

"But I got him!" I retorted, pulling on the device hard. I was trying to pry the fingers off when suddenly metal-sounding ticks echoed, like the sound of pulling a lapbar down on a roller coaster.

"What the hell…?" Suddenly, the thief's hand slackened and then snapped around the device, causing more ticks to sound. The blue skin shorted and then fizzled out like a projection, leaving—_an Aligrena._

"Erica!" The Doctor flung his hands under my arms, pulling me off and away from the monster. The chrome orb with the spokes was clenched in one of the metal claws; I was too shocked to grab it while the Doctor dragged me away and set me down on the ground, so far that none of the metal limbs could reach me. One of the Doctor's arms flew outward, the sonic screwdriver ablaze and pointed at the Aligrena; the other hovered uncertainly behind him and in front of me, keeping a barrier between us. Suddenly, a bright light flashed and heat seared the area, and I caught the Aligrena's eye screen, flaring bright red, for just a second before the whole thing was gone.

I had so many questions in that single moment of shock; but if I tried to put a single one into writing, I don't think I could. They were the sort of wordless questions you think when something completely changes, like when a star basketball player misses a basket or when you're writing a huge paper and suddenly the computer freezes and you can't remember whether or not you saved. Circumstances that make you question everything for a split second, wondering how something happened and how you can fix it.

I was thinking those wordless questions as I stared at the bit of floor the Aligrena occupied a second before in shock, my legs splayed like a small child's. The Doctor pulled me to my feet and dragged me away from the crowd of onlookers. Green Nodan eyes followed us, but neither of us cared. I couldn't tell where the Doctor was leading me, but I soon found myself standing in a small alley with a fire exit at the end, empty except for the Doctor and I. The Doctor glanced toward the opening of the alley, on the lookout for eavesdroppers. I leaned numbly against the wall, my horror still not overcome.

"The Aligrena are here," I said. The sentence was difficult to say, as if it didn't want to pass my lips. "They're _here._"

"Erica, they might not be the same Aligrena that took Naomi," the Doctor explained hurriedly, hoping I'd understand. "Remember, we're at a different point in space, they might not be related at all—"

"But they are," I interrupted. He bit his lip and gazed back worriedly, wondering how to correct me without damaging me further.

"You don't know that for sure—"

"Yes, I _do," _I said, meeting the Doctor's eyes. "I asked why it needed the—whatever it stole. I asked why it had stolen it. It said it needed it for 'the journey home'." The Doctor was watching me, his eyes huge with worry. "Doctor, that's the exact same thing the Aligrena said in Chicago."

He looked away, processing the new information. He ran his hand over his face and looked anywhere but at me, pacing back and forth in the alley. _We always end up in alleyways, don't we?_ I thought. I know it was a rather strange thought to have when you've just had a hell of a shock, but I had retreated into that part of my mind that was content to watch everything unfurl and make little notes of small details. I couldn't handle the big picture, not yet. I watched as the Doctor stopped pacing and walked up close to me, his head bent so our eyes could meet.

"Are you sure?" the Doctor asked seriously. "Are you absolutely sure that that was what the Aligrena said?"

"I swear on my mother's grave," I said. It might sound dramatic now, but I could tell the Doctor still doubted me, and I had to make him absolutely sure. "Doctor, I know what I heard. This Aligrena's involved, too."

The Doctor blinked and chewed on the inside of his cheek, inhaling deeply through his nose. He stepped back a bit, giving me my personal space back. "Well then, I suppose we have no choice," the Doctor said. He held out his hand to me. "Let's go see who knows what."

I took the Doctor's hand carefully into mine, molding my fingers carefully around it. Then I let go of his hand and flung my arms around him. His hand held the back of my head as my own gripped at the back of the green coat, holding fast. It was over in three seconds or so, but those three seconds of solidarity had made me feel infinitely better: I was back in the real world, ready for action instead of sitting back and passively watching everything happen around me. I wasn't just going to think—I was going to _do._

The first place the Doctor and I stopped at was Digital Outlet, the store the Aligrena had successfully robbed. The manager, a Nodan whose eyes were wider horizontal than vertical (the Doctor had _finally _explained that that was what identified the females from the males), was at the counter, questioning her employees. The Doctor pulled the psychic paper that had caused so much strife in Athens out and flashed it to the owner, who dismissed her employees with a wave of her hand.

"Can I help you?" she asked, her four legs crossing gracefully as she moved toward us.

"Hello there!" the Doctor greeted cheerfully, putting the psychic paper away. "We're just a few ambassadors from the Kappa Pi system, and we thought we'd see what's the matter here."

The Nodan sighed irritably. "Yes, hello," she said. "My name is Tolla. I've been managing the shop for eight years, and we've never had such a bold theft."

"Have you identified what had been stolen?"

Tolla nodded. She reached far behind the counter and pulled out a cloud-glass slab, about the size of an iPad and thickness of the wooden blocks made for children to play with. She touched a light finger to it, and suddenly an image of the store blossomed on its surface. A bar appeared on the bottom of the screen (because that's what it was: a screen on a futuristic glass iPad) and she slid her fingertip across it, the image quickly accelerating backwards. Handing it to us, Tolla said, "Here's the video feed. You'll see the lost item clearly."

The Doctor took the glass slab and held it between us, tapping it so it would play at normal speed. And there we were, in Digital Outlet before the unthinkable happened. The Doctor animatedly talked with the sales clerk at the very counter we stood at now, while I wandered around, looking dazedly at the items on the shelves. Suddenly, a Nodan began running out of the store, holding the weird chrome-sphere-with-spokes tightly in its hand. The sales clerk helping the Doctor pointed at him and shouted, "Thief!"

And there I went, sprinting after the criminal like my life depended on it. I shoved people left and right (which I can't recall actually _doing)_ in my haste, but no one seemed to take offense—they were confused, too confused to be angry. A few seconds after I bolted out of Digital Outlet, the Doctor chased after me, muttering apologies to everyone I'd shoved.

As the Doctor and I watched the crime get played out, Tolla narrated, "It was one of our high-demand products: the newest model of atom accelerators from Dornden, Inc." She shook her head.

"Atom accelerator, did you say?" the Doctor asked, pausing the footage.

"It was a fine piece of inventory, and one of the last left."

The Doctor gave the screen back to Tolla, chewing thoughtfully on his lip. In a few more exchanges of meaningless questions, we took our leave, our minds stewing.

"What's an atom accelerator?" I asked. "In English," I added preemptively.

"It's sort of like a steering wheel," he answered. "A big, science-y wience-y steering wheel in space. The TARDIS has one."

"Why would the Aligrena need it?" Find the motive, find the criminal.

The Doctor didn't answer, leaving me two inferences: either he didn't know (which I _very_ highly doubted) or he didn't want _me _to know. Realizing that my question would be left hanging, I supplied another one. "So what do we do now?"

"Let's go back to Algo's," the Doctor said after a thoughtful pause. "I got everything he needed. He can fix the Aligrena."

I scanned the Doctor from head to toe. "Where is it?"

Smiling, the Doctor patted his coat pockets. "Bigger-on-the-inside pockets," he explained. "Ideal for shopping sprees."

I felt myself smiling before I could stop it. The motion felt unfamiliar after the shocks of the last fifteen minutes. The Doctor offered his arm to me and I looped mine through his, and we strode back to Algo's, our hearts lightening again.


	10. Chapter 10: What's He Hiding?

Chapter 10- What's He Hiding?

Have you ever played the game, "Operation"? Well, if you haven't, here's the gist: you have to try and fix the patient without making anything buzz. Eventually, you end up getting desperate and make less careful moves, and the game usually ends with someone turning the board upside down and shaking it so all the little body parts fell out.

By the looks of it, the Doctor and Algo were headed that way.

Their own game of Operation started out calm and serious enough; Algo would work on the Aligrena and ask the Doctor to hand him a special tool whenever he needed, or to hold a certain coil of wire so the area was clear. Then Algo started getting impatient and less mindful of the Aligrena; the Doctor tried to calm him down, but they only ended up butting heads. Now they were snapping suggestions at each other, neither willing to take orders. I should've been pretending to ignore the altercation; but in all honesty, it was hilarious.

The Doctor stomped over to me, hands clenched into fists. His sleeves were rolled to the elbows, his coat cast off on the floor. He threw himself into a lean against the wall, mimicking my posture and muttering to himself.

"Not going well, I take it?" I asked.

"The work's going fine," the Doctor replied. "We're just having a bit of a disagreement, that's all."

"More than a bit, looks like," I said. The Doctor huffed.

"I'm going to get some things from the TARDIS," he said, pushing off the wall. "Maybe they can help." He began rolling his sleeves down, buttoning the cuffs when they were back on his wrist. "Will you be okay without me for a few minutes? It'll just be Algo here."

"I'll be fine," I replied, getting back on my feet. I walked over to his coat and picked up the lump of green fabric, dusting it off as I walked back. "You really ought to take better care of your clothes," I added, holding the coat up for him. He slid his arms into the sleeves as I flattened his collar, spinning him around. I made sure his lapels were nice and symmetrical, and I even went so far as to straighten his bowtie. "Can't have you going back to the TARDIS looking like you've just been in a fight," I fussed.

"She can get protective of me," the Doctor added. He gave the bowtie one final tug and ran his hands down his smooth lapels. "See you in a mo'," he said, spinning on his heel and leaving the store, walking in his gracefully lanky way.

I walked over to Algo and leaned on the counter, watching him work. They'd taken off the back panel of the Aligrena, revealing all sorts of circuitry boards and computer chips underneath a woven blanket of wires. Gaps in the wires showed where the Doctor and Algo had begun working. All manner of tools lay on the counter and floor, tools that Bill Gates couldn't hope to understand. Algo worked hard, using what looked like a magnifying glass with two wires on the lens for some function I couldn't try to guess.

"If you don't mind my asking," I began tentatively, "how's it coming along?"

"Well," Algo said, drawing it out as he figured out what to say. "We've made some progress, but…not nearly enough for what you want to do." There was another tense pause where he worked and I watched, both of us pointedly ignoring the elephant in the room. Algo, hoping to alleviate the awkwardness, asked, "How long have you known the Doctor?"

"Not very long at all," I conceded. By a very rough guess, it was about half a day in Chicago, from when he saved me from the Aligrena to when I asked if I could travel with him; close to a full day in Athens as the Doctor, Herod and I held an unnecessary wake; and it was already half a day on Delta Delta we'd spent together. Add in the time we spent in the TARDIS, with me sleeping and him working—"Yeah, only about three days together."

Algo looked up in surprise. "That little?" he asked. "They were long days," I added, a bit self-conscious of Algo's shock. "Forgive me, Erica," he said, becoming aware of his goggling. "You two simply seem very close for knowing each other not even three days."

"What makes you say that?"

Algo set down is instruments. "The way you two interact with each other. Just now, you were fixing him up like a mother would her son on the first day of school. It's really endearing, actually."

"It—it's just what I do," I stuttered. How was I supposed to respond? "What about you? How long have you known him?"

"Oh, I've known him for ages," he answered. "He only visits once or twice a year, though. And last time he brought his wife."

Wait.

What?

Up until then, I'd never considered the possibility that the Doctor had a family. I'd never seen anyone else in the TARDIS. I suppose I'd assumed that since the Doctor told me he was the only Time Lord, he would be alone. And, as painful as that assumption is, it seemed to fit. He wanted a friend to share the universe with, but he never told me about himself, even though that's what friends do. It was the classic, "I'll be myself, but never tell you who I am" behavior.

I know because I've done it. When Dad died, I wanted life to go back to normal. I joked and laughed like usual, but when someone offered to listen to me, I told them I was fine, even though I was anything but. The Doctor and I were doing this right now: we were acting like we've known each other since childhood, but when it really came down to it, we didn't know a thing about each other. And that was clear on my part.

"He's married?" I asked, badly suppressing my shock.

Algo looked up. "Haven't you met her?" he asked. I shook my head. Algo shrugged. "She's a lovely woman. She always complained about the cold here. She was human like yourself, I believe."

"What was she like?" It might've been rude, but if I asked the Doctor, he would never tell me.

"She was very…in charge," Algo said reminiscently, setting down his tools. "She always spoke her mind, no matter what she thought or who she offended. And she was loud—oh, so loud. And she and the Doctor would bicker all the time like children. She was definitely a fine woman for the Doctor."

"What's her name?"

"I believe she was called Amy."

I chewed on the inside of my cheek thoughtfully. So the Doctor had a wife. Well, the first question was: where is she? Was she hiding away in the TARDIS? And also, why wouldn't the Doctor tell me about her? I mean, I understand not telling me about Algo until we needed him, but this was his wife we're talking about. Algo went back to his work as I quietly mulled over the new information.

"Well, hopefully I'll meet her soon," I mumbled while Algo crossed the Aligrena's wires. Suddenly, sparks erupted from two outlets in the machine, eliciting surprised screams from both Algo and I. We jumped back as the Aligrena began buzzing and vibrating, the sounds harsh on our ears.

"Ca—calibrated—mind—wi—thin—range!" it ground out horribly, quite the departure from the smooth voice it had spoken to the Doctor and I with (I guess having your guts ripped out will do that to you). Suddenly, one claw shot out from it and snapped around my wrist, tugging me forward.

"Algo!" I shrieked as more claws clamped around my arms, dragging me towards it. "Turn it off!"

Frantically, Algo shouted, "I'm trying! I'm trying!"

The Aligrena tugged me closer, dragging itself off the work counter. It supported itself on the claws lining its bottom edge, adding a whole new degree of sinister. Well, the Doctor had been right: Algo could fix the Aligrena after all.

The Aligrena reached for my throat, my elbows, my shoulders; anything it could hold me with was fair game. I whirled on the spot, hoping centripetal force would throw the thing off me, but it stayed firmly latched on. I tried reaching around to yank out some of the wires, but I could barely move my arms in the tangle of metal tentacles holding me prisoner.

"Pre—preparing—for—trans—port!" the Aligrena said in its raw growl.

"NooooOOO!" came a third voice, rising in pitch and achingly familiar. A sudden impact threw the Aligrena and me off balance, forcing me to take a step back to regain it. Then there was a series of clicks, a loud buzz—and then the beautiful sound of a computer powering down. The tentacles went limp and released me, the Aligrena falling to the floor in a big, metal heap. I stumbled away, gripping the glass counter for support and crouching partly behind it for protection. Relief washed over me in a great, pounding wave, so strong that sound was temporarily blocked from my ears.

The Doctor stood over the now-lifeless Aligrena, firmly pressing a bizarre combination of a TV remote and a suction cup into its exposed hardwiring. He twisted the contraption around, his brow furrowed angrily and his jaw thrust forward. I couldn't tell if it was out of exertion or fury. The Aligrena jerked up a bit off the floor, making Algo and I jump.

"Oh, no you don't!" the Doctor declared, twisting his device around with bone-breaking force. The Aligrena buzzed harshly and then fell silent and still.

The Doctor looked up at me, leaning on the counter. "You all right?" he asked me softly, hugely contrasting his impassioned commands for the Aligrena. I nodded breathlessly, not trusting my voice to speak without cracking. The Doctor glanced at Algo, who said, "I'm fine. Just fine." The Doctor nodded at each of us in turn before giving his tool one last jerk and pulling it away. Algo helped me back to my feet, and together we walked toward the Doctor, not really sure what to say.

"I'm afraid I've reset all your work, Algo," the Doctor said apologetically, his breathing irregular. "I've taken you back to square one."

"It's no problem," Algo replied, still not quite over his shock. "I can—I can fix it. A different way this time." The Doctor nodded and said nothing.

Trying to lighten the mood, I joked, "You certainly got back in the nick of time, didn't you?"

The Doctor turned his gaze to me and cracked a small, relieved, appreciative smile. "Yeah, I guess I did."

Suddenly, a long, low, drawn-out alarm filled the store, startling all of us. It reminded me of the noise a carnival game might make if the player lost. The Aligrena began repeating a mantra of three words, three terrifying words, that nearly made my heart stop.

"Broad—c—casting—rescue—sig—nal!"

"No! Stop it!" the Doctor yelled admonishingly at the Aligrena, whipping out his sonic screwdriver. Algo dove down to the machine and began frantically operating on it, yanking wires out and putting them in different plugs. I tore and clawed at the metal, breaking my fingernails in the process. After eight frantic seconds, the Aligrena's broadcast died out, leaving the Doctor, Algo and I grouped together on the ground, panting.

"Who…who did it?" Algo panted. "Who shut it down?"

The Doctor waved his sonic screwdriver in the air, gasping for breath. "Never underestimate the sonic."

"You don't think the rescue signal got through, do you?" I asked breathlessly. Suddenly, there was a bright flash in the room, blinding all of us. When we blinked the spots out of our eyes, we found another Aligrena—probably the one from Digital Outlet—hovering over our victim, its belly open with a wire dropping down.

"Re—boot—commencing!"

Without thinking, I lunged forward, wrapped the wire around my hand, and tugged hard; the wire tore from the Aligrena, the end frayed. The Aligrena swiveled toward me and I began scrambling hastily away from it, hoping the claws couldn't reach me. Suddenly, a blue arm wrapped around the thing and plunged what can only be described as a wrench with arms into its open belly, firmly pressing a purple button on the side. The eye screen went dark and the Aligrena shut down, supported only by Algo's alien arms.


	11. Chapter 11: Tying Up Loose Ends

_AN: okay guys, i'm sorry the formatting was weird for this, I have no idea what's going on. I edited it and made it a bit more readable. i didn't notice until a few days after i published it. if anyone knows what's going on, can you help me out? thanks, and enjoy!_

* * *

Chapter 11- Tying Up Loose Ends

I remember how well the Doctor, Algo and I had gotten along after the small siege with the two Aligrena. Any strange sort of event simply draws people closer—we've just been attacked by two broken alien robots. I can't say I've done that with anyone else. It's the shared experiences that bond people together. I can safely say that if I ever see Algo again, he'll welcome me with open arms.

Algo's computer shop was in quite the state in the aftermath of the siege. Computer parts and pieces of the cloud-glass counter littered the floor, which now had a small dent or two in it from our struggles. When the three of us finished stowing the Aligrena away in Algo's back workroom, we fell to cleaning his shop up: after all, the whole reason it was a mess was the Doctor and I. We fixed everything up: the Doctor made the cloud-glass counter whole again with his sonic; Algo was sorting through the bits of technology on the floor and seeing what was useful; I had gone complete business-owner-and-operator and decided to give the entire place a thorough scrubbing from floor to ceiling. We would joke while we worked—our laughs weren't loud, obnoxious guffaws, but amused chuckles instead. The joke might've been funny, but we didn't have the stamina to show just how funny it could be. We were exhausted by our battles today.

When the shop was in a better state than when we arrived, Algo treated us to some food. We stopped at the Nodan equivalent of a coffee shop and the Doctor ordered us some Pholindon (a thick purple drink that tasted like dark chocolate), and we sat, hunched over a circular table, comfortable in our silence.

"So," I began, heaving a sigh. "What are we gonna do with the Aligrena?"

"You can leave them with me," Algo answered. "I can work on it and try to fix it up—properly this time. No, I won't have them attacking anyone. I'll see if I can access their databanks."

"That's going to take a lot of time and work, Algo," the Doctor warned.

"I know," Algo replied. "But I've got time. It'll be slow-going, but I'll get there in the end." The Doctor watched him thoughtfully, as if deciding whether or not this was a good idea. Fortunately for him, I'd already decided.

I reached into my front pocket and withdrew the wad of Nodan money from the ATM the Doctor had broken into, placing it in Algo's hand.

"If there's any special gadget or gizmo you need, use this to buy it," I said, curling his fingers around it. "And if you need our help, don't hesitate to ask." Algo smiled and pocketed the money.

"Thank you, my dear," he said sincerely. I shot a look toward the Doctor; reluctantly, he gave over his half of the cash, too. Algo's eyes widened and he laughed as he scooped the money into his pocket. "What did you two do, rob a bank?" he joked.

The Doctor and I laughed a little too enthusiastically to be genuine.

After a long lunch, the Doctor and I bid Algo goodbye, with promises to aid one another if they ever needed it. We slowly walked through the Coliseum back to the TARDIS, glad we can have a breather. The Doctor was talking out his plans for what's next. I was only half-listening.

"I got the general location of their receiving teleport," he said at the speed of light. "I got the signal, and with a bit of tweaking—"

"Algo told me about your wife," I interrupted. Oh, did you _really_ think I would forget to ask him?

The Doctor ceased his babbling, but his mouth hung open, like there was so much he wanted to say that he couldn't. "What did he say?" he asked, looking anywhere but at me.

"Not much," I conceded. "Her name, her species, little things. But I was wondering why I haven't seen her."

"She's…" he began, staring at the wall behind me. "She's got a business arrangement that keeps her away. We don't see each other very often."

I could tell he was hiding something, but I didn't press him. I wasn't going to force him into talking about her. But by the look in his eyes, there was so much for him to say that he wanted to say. Lord, he wanted to say it, but he was biting his tongue so hard he might've drawn blood. And that silence was killing him.

I smiled, but I knew the Doctor could tell I was thinking other things. "Well, I hope I'll meet your mysterious Amy soon," I said optimistically.

The Doctor finally looked at me, eyebrows knitting together in confusion.

"Amy?" he repeated.

"Yeah, Amy," I said uncertainly. "Your wife."

"She's not my…" the Doctor trailed off. "Oh!" he suddenly exclaimed, comprehension dawning on his face. He clapped a hand to my arm and laughed. It was a relief to see him smile like that. "No, Erica," he said, his words punctuated by the stray chuckle. "Amy's a friend of mine. We came here once and I introduced her to Algo. He got everything all wrong about us—oh, he always overestimates these things. Computer genius, but no intuition whatsoever."

"So Amy's not your wife?"

"No," he explained, relieved. "Just a really good friend of mine."

"But you are married?" The Doctor nodded. "What's her name, so if that happens again I can sort it out?"

"River Song," the Doctor sighed happily. His face reminded me of a puppy that had just gotten a new toy and looked at its owner like he'd just gotten the world. After a moment where the Doctor reflected on…something, he perked up and said, "Well, I'm glad that's cleared up. Let's get back to the TARDIS—we have a signal to track."

With a springier step, the Doctor and I joined the Nodan masses journeying down the thoroughfare, he pointing out functions of different devices displayed in the window like an overly-enthusiastic tour guide. We occasionally ducked into the shops we passed, browsing their selections and raving about what they did.

"Oh, Doctor, let's look in this one!" I called, dragging him inside. He began narrating to himself the entire inventory of the store, but I wandered among the chrome gadgets and whirring gizmos alone, content to fantasize about the products' functions. I turned into one aisle and immediately spotted a plain, old picture frame with no photograph in it, sitting on a shelf next to the floor. Curious, I picked it up; I remember being surprised by the fact that there was no glare. Suddenly, a picture of Naomi burst into life on the surface of the frame, smiling up at me like nothing was out of the ordinary. Actually, no—it wasn't a picture at all; it was more like a Skype call, but with much better quality and neither of us saying anything. It's hard to put into words, actually. The best way to describe it was like a living picture of her, like something out of Harry Potter: her wavy, straw-colored hair, so like our mother's, bounced as she laughed joyously, her round green eyes crinkled at the corners in a smile. Whatever it was, it rendered me speechless. I asked those wordless questions all over again.

"Erica!" the Doctor called, from somewhere on the edge of my consciousness. "I found the best little trinket—" His words suddenly stopped, and I sensed him there with me, watching me watch Naomi. More quietly, he said, "Now what's this you've found?"

He reached over and took it from my hand; my fingers stayed curled, holding the air the picture frame used to be in. I glanced up at the Doctor, his brow furrowed in curiosity as he stared at the frame. "Oh, hang on," he whispered. Suddenly, he crouched down to the shelf the frame had occupied, setting it down on the floor. As he checked the sales label on the shelf, I could make out the image of three people grouped together—a woman with flaming red hair and a round face; a skinny, lanky man with a prominent nose; and a woman with sun-kissed skin and piles upon piles of golden curls. They were all embracing and smiling up at us brightly. I picked up the frame to get a closer look, but the image shifted back to Naomi.

"Oh, I know what this is!" the Doctor exclaimed triumphantly. He groped for the frame, but finding it missing, glanced up and saw me staring at it. He watched me carefully, as if afraid a secret were about to spill; I didn't know whose.

"It's called a Memory Display," he explained, staring at the frame in my hands. "Touch it, and it shows you your loved ones."

"So it's a mind-reading picture frame?" I asked.

"Essentially, yes."

I stared at my sister longingly, missing her. "I wish we hadn't given all our money to Algo," I said, reaching to place the frame back on its shelf. The Doctor laid a hand on my arm, his other hand reaching into his pants pocket. With a bit of contortion required by our kneeling positions, the Doctor withdrew a handful of bills; nothing like the wad of cash we'd stolen from the ATM, but enough to get us a good haul of souvenirs. My eyes widened at the Doctor as I looked up at him.

"It's always good to have some spare change," he said, answering my questioning gaze. We headed to the checkout, where the Doctor used almost every bill to pay for the Memory Display. The cashier put in in a box, which he then put in a black basket (Delta Delta might be the tech center of the universe, but you can only say so much about a planet that hasn't discovered plastic). The Doctor and I left, the basket swinging from my elbow and my free arm looped through his.

"Thanks, Doctor," I said sincerely. "I really appreciate it. I owe you one."

"Oh, you owe me nothing, Erica," the Doctor chided playfully.

"Well, next time we're on Earth, I'll treat you to lunch," I promised.

The Doctor pulled his arm from mine and threw it across my shoulders, laughing. "I'll hold you to that," he said, leaning on me. Together we traipsed through the Business and Travel Coliseum of Delta Delta Noda Four, finally getting back to the TARDIS after twenty minutes (during which we got lost and the Doctor refused to admit it). The Doctor happily charged in, pulling out his sonic screwdriver and inserting it into a large open plug embedded in the console.

I held up the black basket containing the Memory Display. "I'm gonna go set this up in my room," I called, heading up the stairs. "I'll be back in a second."

"You do that!" the Doctor replied, happily fiddling with his beloved machine. I nodded to myself and began climbing the stairs, the signature TARDIS vwoorp starting up behind me; but halfway up, I remembered the people that had shown up when he touched the Display. The fiery-haired woman, the golden-haired one, and the awkward-looking man stood out in my mind. I halted on the stair and turned around.

"You know," I began hesitantly. "If you ever want to use it, just…go ahead. You don't need to ask." The Doctor looked up at me, as though trying to solve a mildly-challenging puzzle. "I mean, you bought it," I added quickly. "Seems like you deserve that privilege."

A tiny smile lifted the Doctor's lips. "Thank you, Erica," he said. "I really appreciate it."

I nodded at him one more time, turned around, and headed to my room. Once I'd had a good, long shower and changed into warm black leggings, a plaid button down two sizes too large, and a pair of purple boots with fur on the inside, I finally set myself to the task of setting the Memory Display up. When I'd finally worked the Display out of its packaging (the cashier deserves an award for packing skills) and set up the little stand it came with, the screen bloomed with an image of the Doctor, looking up at me with the playful smile that he seemed to wear as often as his bowtie. I took the frame into my hands and watched the Doctor through it.

"I'm always worrying about you, aren't I?" I said. Well, it's no matter—he needed someone to worry about him, and I'd happily oblige. I couldn't remember much after that, because a sudden impact, strong as two eighteen-wheelers colliding, threw me to the ground. My head hit the chest of drawers and I was knocked unconscious.


	12. Chapter 12: Abduction of an Alien

_Okay, so these next few chapters are going to have some triggers. For this one, there are three very slight descriptions of blood._

* * *

Chapter 12- Abduction of an Alien

If you asked me last year if I knew I would wake up on the floor of a bigger-on-the-inside combination spaceship/time machine that I'd boarded to rescue my sister from her alien kidnappers, I would've asked you if that was the plot to the next Hangover movie. But now, my only thought was: _What the hell did you do _this _time, Doctor?_

I got up from the floor, where I saw the fallen Memory Display next to a red stain on the carpeting. Alarmed, I hurriedly wiped the back of my wrist across a stinging pain on my forehead, and my arm came away bloody. My head slightly ached from where my wrist had met the open wound, like a piece of metal wire being pressed into my forehead.

_It's only a cut,_ I thought to myself. _Take care of it later. Just find the Doctor, make sure he's okay, and find out what the hell happened._

Swiping my arm across my injury one last time and staining my arm further with blood, I hurried out of my room, hoping the Doctor was in the one place I always found him: the console room. The TARDIS suddenly shook again, and my side slammed into the floor, sending sparks of pain all along my body. I shakily got to my feet, running before I was properly upright again, stumbling to the landing just inside the console room where, to my horror, the Doctor lay thrown in a heap against the banister bordering the glass floor, unconscious. The TARDIS's lights were rapidly fading and returning to blazing brightness and fading again, and the controls were exploding, spraying waves of sparks in every direction. The TARDIS continued its _vwoorp_ing, signaling that we were still in flight, a thought that inspired both relief and terror. I hurried down the stairs and stumbled to the Doctor, hurting my knees as I fell to his side. Pulling him until he was face up and lying spread-eagled on the glass, I lightly slapped his cheek and shook his shoulders, trying desperately to wake him up.

"Come on, Doctor," I quietly begged. "Come on, wake up. Doctor, wake up!"

Slowly, the Doctor's green eyes blinked open. "Erica," he groaned groggily.

"Yep, I'm right here," I said, relief washing over me. Thank God—he needed to fly us out of here. I could try, but the TARDIS would probably drop me into a black hole if I did. "Come on, Doctor, you need to get us out of here."

"Right," he said, sounding like he had no idea what was going on (and I couldn't blame him). I grasped his hand and hauled him up to a sitting position. He muttered his thanks and we both began rising to our feet, moving out of the way of the showers of sparks exploding from the console.

"What's going on?" I yelled over the thunderous thumps echoing through the console room.

"Someone's trying to overpower the TARDIS!" he called back, waiting for the sparks to die down so he could get to the controls. Once they stopped, he darted to the console and hurriedly flipped a few switches, hoping to regain control of the ship.

"Are there any missiles we can fire?"

He looked at me incredulously. "It's a _blue box_ on the outside! Where could they _possibly _fit?"

"I don't know how TARDISes work!" I said defensively. "You're the one who flies it, and you can't even do _that _right!"

"You know, in all my eleven hundred years, I've never had such an unappreciative passenger!" the Doctor spat, busily operating his ship. The TARDIS suddenly lurched again, causing the Doctor to redouble his efforts on controlling his ship, flinching exaggeratedly through the sparks. "Well, there aren't any missiles, to answer your question!" he yelled. "No weapons systems at all, so you can forget about that!"

"So no offensive abilities?"

"Absolutely none!"

"Brilliant!" I added sarcastically. The TARDIS kept jolting around, making balance a constant struggle. The Doctor tugged the computer monitor around and peered at the screen while I fought my way over to him. An image of space spanned the screen, with the most oddly-shaped spaceship I'd ever seen. It was a horizontal tube with two giant, revolving wheels at each end, and there was a piercingly bright blue tube of light coming from it, painting the whole screen in a layer of luminescence. "What the _hell _is that?!"

"Whatever it is, it's trying to get us inside!" the Doctor explained, tripling his efforts on the controls and fighting even harder for his TARDIS. His movements grew more and more violent, slamming a lever down so hard he almost snapped it in half.

"HEY!" I shouted. "Easy!"

"I don't have time for 'easy'!" the Doctor angrily yelled back. Suddenly, another almighty jolt rocked the TARDIS, tossing the Doctor and me to the glass floor and knocking the wind out of me. Though the Doctor must've been breathless, too, he immediately got back up and began violently slamming buttons and turning cranks. The TARDIS's _vwoorp_ing suddenly stopped, along with the powerful lurches.

"No," the Doctor said, in denial. "Come on, old girl, you can pull through!" He fruitlessly began flinging his controls up and down, but the great crystal pump in the console, like the rest of the ship, stayed silent and still.

I climbed back to my feet, rubbing my shoulder where it had struck the floor. "Doctor, what's going on?"

"They have us," the Doctor answered, gazing at his silent TARDIS. "They have us trapped in their trans-mat beam, and they're bringing us inside."

"Should we fight?" I suggested. I know it's not his style, but we'd just been abducted. That's what I would do. That's what Naomi did.

"No use," he replied. "Ship that size, we'd be grossly outnumbered," he added, turning around. His spin, I noted, had lost its usual zest. He leaned against the console, his eyes flitting up to my forehead and the brows drawing together in worry. "You're hurt."

I touched the slice in my forehead with a light finger. I'd almost forgotten about the injury in all the excitement. "Just a cut," I reassured. "I hit my head on the dresser in my room. Don't worry about it."

The Doctor opened his mouth as if he were about to say something, but the TARDIS suddenly lurched one final time, causing a resounding _thump_ to echo from its depths. We both reached out to grab something to hold on to: the Doctor, his console; me, the banister. My stomach felt like it had flown into my chest cavity, like the feeling you always get when going down a hill in a car. Our grips still tight upon our holds, the Doctor and I exchanged a glance.

"We're inside the ship," I said. Something in the Doctor's gaze told me that, but even now I can't say what.

The Doctor nodded in nervous affirmation.

"What do we do?" I asked.

He released the console and straightened up, and I did the same. "We go out and hope for the best," he replied, adjusting his bowtie.

Frowning, I reached up to his coat, tugging the green lapels until they were straight and smoothing down the shoulders until they lay flat. "If we're marching into the unknown, at least look presentable," I said fussily.

The Doctor smiled down at me, in a thank-you-for-being-you sort of smile. "Thanks, Erica," he said, slurring the letter A in my name like he always did. "Thanks for everything."

"The pleasure was all mine," I replied sincerely. He took my hand, squeezed it reassuringly, and led us out of the TARDIS.

The Doctor and I emerged into what looked like a large loading bay on a cargo boat, one that had apparently seen the horrors of war. The whole bay was banged up, like the war had taken place inside it. Exposed wires hung from the ceiling; the metal paneling was dented, scratched, and sometimes completely ripped away; and the lighting was only just enough for us to see all this, leaving the corners in shadow. The most conspicuous thing about the loading bay was the fact that no one was in it.

The Doctor took his hand from mine and withdrew the sonic screwdriver from his pocket, holding it at the ready.

"Hello?" he called out, unexpectedly genially. "Anyone there?" He sounded like he'd gone over to a friend's place, but it was empty when he got there. Profoundly _not _like he was trying to intimidate anyone. And someone had to pick up the slack.

"Whoever brought us here, show yourself!" I ordered, advancing forward intimidatingly.

"Oi, stop!" the Doctor shushed while my firm voice echoed around the room, pulling me back to his side.

"They need to know we can't be messed with!"

"Don't _provoke _them!"

"Hold on!" a voice called out from one of the darkened corners, interrupting our bickering. A short, round man soon stepped into the light, holding up his hands in surrender. He was oddly dressed, wearing a heavy, gray, smocklike shirt and rather similar pants, which were messily tucked into a pair of black combat boots.

My shoulders squared—something seemed off about him, but that might just be my general attitude toward strangers ("Get away from the people I care about."). "Who're you?" I interrogated, not minding the fact that _we_ were brought onto _his _ship, and so were at his mercy. _Forget mercy,_ I told myself.

"P-please, ma'am," he stuttered, his eyes never meeting mine. "W-we're not going to hurt you."

"Then why did you force us into your ship?" I questioned, still suspicious and more than a bit venomous.

"Please forgive us for that," the man answered. "We would've asked you to come aboard, but our communication systems are broken. We couldn't get you inside unless we pulled you in ourselves. We're terribly sorry for that, but we needed your help."

"How do you know we can give it?" the Doctor asked. He sounded suspicious, but also like he was willing to give our abductors a chance.

The man's hands slowly fell back to his side. "Your box, of course!" he exclaimed, gesturing behind us to the TARDIS. "The blue box that's been spotted throughout all of time and space? One of you is the Doctor—which is it, actually?"

After a moment where I was sure he was wondering if he could trust this man, the Doctor stepped forward. "That'd be me," he said. It almost sounded like he was trying to downplay it, like he didn't _want_ the man to know he was the Doctor. No, actually; it was like he didn't want to be known as the Doctor at all. But before I could ponder his thought process, the man across from us spoke up again.

"You're the Prisoner of the Pandorica," he said, approaching us. I rejoined the Doctor's side and shouldered myself a little bit in front of him, defensive. I still didn't trust this guy—can you tell? "Historians have all these theories that you once restarted the whole of creation. All of your enemies imprisoned you, and yet you defied them. You can manage to save the universe from destruction with a rubber band and a paper clip. You're a genius, the genius above all geniuses—"

"Genii," the Doctor and I corrected at the same time. We exchanged a quick glance, both of us surprised.

The man nodded hurriedly. "Yes, whatever you said. My point is: you're smart. You're great. You're kind. And we need your help."

"Why?" the Doctor and I asked, again in unison. We again glanced at each other; this was starting to get spooky.

The man raised his arms, gesturing around the cargo bay. "You see the state of this ship," he said. "You can see that it's about to fall apart." The man stepped closer. "We need you to fix it. If anyone can, it's you!"

"Why should he?" I asked. This man had no business asking us to fix his space boat out of the blue. Apparently, he understood my caution.

"Fair question," he said. "You see, this ship is filled with refugees. We used to live on a planet called Earth, and as you might've heard, the Great Dust Storm is getting worse."

"Dust Storm?" I repeated. "What Dust Storm?"

"The Great Dust Storm began in the year 170,283," the Doctor explained. "Covers nearly the whole of the eastern hemisphere. The dust spread through the air to the western one and now the entire atmosphere is contaminated."

The man nodded. "They began sending people off of Earth, hoping for a better, cleaner planet to call home."

"But the Human Empire's expanded by now," the Doctor rebutted. "You've already colonized other planets. Surely you have multiple refuge opportunities."

"That—that's nice to know," the man stuttered. "Have we really survived? No one's heard back from the Space Expeditions yet—no one's been able to communicate back."

"So you're stuck in space," the Doctor clarified.

The man nodded. "Yes. Our ship was in good condition when we took off, but we've run into more than one territory scuffle, and the ship's taken the toll. Can you fix it?"

The Doctor chewed the inside of his cheek thoughtfully, glancing around the cargo bay as if evaluating it. A smile suddenly blossomed on his face. "I'll do it," he answered. "Might take a while, but we'll get her fixed up, I promise you that."

The man smiled. "Thank you, Doctor!" he exclaimed, reaching a hand out. The Doctor shook it, and the man added, "I'm captain of the ship, Captain Leonard Briggs. Call me Lenny, if you like. Welcome aboard the _Star Ariel_!" Lenny- _nope, too chummy, I'll call him Briggs, _I thought- extended his hand to me, but his grip became limp when his eyes alit on my forehead.

"Dear lord, you're hurt," he said, his eyebrows drawing together. "We'll find someone to take care of that. What's your name, then?"

"Emily," I said before the Doctor could properly introduce me. "Emily Smith."

I could tell the Doctor was surprised by my lie, but he said nothing for the time being. Fortunately, the ruse went undetected by Briggs. "Thank you for joining us, Doctor and Mrs. Smith."

"We're not married," the Doctor and I said, again at the exact same time. Why does this keep happening?

"Forgive me," Briggs said. "Would you like to start working now, or would you rather a night of rest?"

"Nope! I'll start now," the Doctor piped up. "Nothing like diving straight into something, I say. Can you take me to the bridge? I'll try to get your communications up first."

"Very well!" Briggs exclaimed genially, gesturing behind him. "Follow me. It's quite a long walk, but this way you can see what has to be repaired on the ship, and we can take Ms. Smith to the infirmary. Coming?"

Briggs turned on his heel and began leading us out of the cargo bay of the _Star Ariel_, his walk rather bouncy. As soon as his back was turned, the Doctor and I glanced at each other; we both had questions for each other that we'd answer as soon as we're alone.


End file.
